Leaving for Portland

We hadn’t flown anywhere for three years, and then I had the brilliant idea to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets for his concert in Portland, OR, which was scheduled for February 25th. Since Bruce wasn’t coming to SLC, the closest places we could catch him were Denver or Portland. We talked about it and realized the safer “weather” choice for flying in late February was Portland. Statistically, that’s true. Unfortunately for us, we were flying in a plane, and not in a statistic. To be fair, during the week of our flight, it wouldn’t have mattered what city we had chosen for our destination: most of the country was pelted with freakish snowy weather. When I woke up on the day we were scheduled to fly and checked the status of the flight we would be taking later that morning, I saw we had a slight delay of thirty minutes. So far, so good. Bow Tie o’ the Day was ready to go.

At the SLC airport, we sat down in the boarding area at our gate with plenty of time to spare, and then we began our normal airport routine. We people-watch, which is the best free entertainment there is, because people are, well, so peopley. Then we take turns wandering through the airport shops while one of us stays planted with our bags at our seats. I buy us a bunch of airport-priced Diet Cokes and snacks to see us through our waiting and our flight. To be completely honest, I bought a couple of “just in case” of books, which is also a traditional part of our waiting-in-an-airport routine. And finally, we take turns making one last pit stop in the ladies room before boarding. We were ready to board the plane when we we were hit with another flight delay, and another, and another. That’s right: 4 delays. It was a long day in the belly of SLC International Airport. I must admit there was music to entertain us—since we were sitting close to a newly minted sister missionary who just happened to be nervously humming LDS hymns for hours on end. Bless her little heart. Yay for her. Hours later, as we at finally boarded the plane for our journey, I kept my eye out for the humming young missionary—saying my own little prayer that our seats were nowhere within earshot of her anxious humming. We lucked out on that wish. The flight to Portland—to see Bruce—was on.