From OC to Disney and Back; Day One : A New Beginning :)

After today, everything will be better. The day started bright and early (Sarah and Kat insist it was too early) and the first hours of the morning were quiet. Dad and I enjoyed an amazing swim with the swimsuits that we'd packed. When we returned home, we made sure those swimsuits went into the dryer, to dry of so that we could pack them later. Then came time to awaken any sleeping Sarahs to get up for the day.

           

Once everyone was awake, and someone, like Dad, had done their repacking, we loaded everything we could think of into the car. We had a carry-on for each member of the family and then some. We then happily drove to Clackamas Town Center, to park the car and catch the Green Line MAX Train to Gateway Transit Center.

While in the white walled, Primary Color-Plated carriage, we came upon an epiphany.

We had left the check bag in the living room. (Cue the dramatic music!)

The check bag that had all of our Snorkel Masks, the champagne for the captain, and, most importantly, it had our toiletries. How very intelligent of us. But this was just the start of several crises, both real and illusory. 

Once we had arrived at the airport and secured baggage tags on our Carry-On baggage, and NOT the checked bag as it was not with us, we proceeded as usual through the spacious, green-carpeted terminal, stopping before the security checkpoint to eat Panda Express and get a book at the airport's Powell's. Once our literal and literary hunger was adequately sated, albeit in a bit of a rush, we hurried to the security checkpoint to attempt to move on. After loading 4 tubs and 5 bags onto the conveyor belt to go through the mysterious machine that determines the safety of items like a doctor examines bones, we  moved through the metal detector, some people, like me, needing to send more items back through the X-Ray machine. Then we left, Kat pulling a bag, Sarah carrying hers, Dad carrying one and me carrying mine.

We then moved somewhat quickly along the moving sidewalks through the PDX Airport to our boarding gate. When we had sat down for a while to rest, Dad was still on the phone with Disney, as they had called him to clarify some details of his travel plan. After a few minutes and various announcements, we heard "Would Jayesh Palshikar please come to the security terminal to pick up a forgotten item." Anyone that has been counting and reading carefully knows quite well that we forgot a bag. As it turns out, Kat had grabbed Dad's rolling suitcase, mistaking it for her own, and Dad didn't notice he was without a suitcase.

By the time Dad got back, it was minutes before boarding began. We rushed anyone that needed to use the restroom and get drinks of water through that process before we heard our boarding group being called over the PA. Reluctantly, we joined the long line to board the 737 Airplane, owned by American Airlines. They asked for anyone willing to check their bag to check it complementary to the flight, and Dad volunteered his own roller bag to be stowed in the cargo bay.

The service aboard our 737 Plane was fantastic! While many airlines' safety briefing is verbal and demonstrative, American Airlines shows off their preflight and postflight videos that inform us, as passengers, as to the expectations for safety and conduct to prepare for the flight and disembarkation respectively. And while inflight, we were granted the opportunity for us to utilize the inbuilt entertainment systems featuring a range of activities from watching Movies and TV shows, like BBC's Doctor Who, to playing games with each other, like the trivia game we played as a family, to even listening to music or reading books.

After a very long flight, we were only halfway done and resting in the Dallas airport at about 5:45 Dallas time. It was at this time that Dad decided to freak out because we were "missing a bag" at which point we had to remind him that he had checked his bag and that it was currently being transferred from one cargo bay to the other.

Following this micropanic, we wandered around the Dallas airport from map to skyrail to map again. We saw several ad boards made up of TV's as we went by, but none seemed to empathic of our unfortunate chain of forgetfulness than this one here.

After we had a good laugh at the billboard, we stopped by Auntie Anne's pretzels on our way to the gate at which we would board.

When we had arrived there, we barely had 10 minutes before boarding began. We hadn't even eaten out pretzels and already we were being shepherded onto the older 757 passenger plane, with less seat space in every dimension and more people space going backwards.

I did  not enjoy the 757 flight.

It was long. It was boring. There were no magic tablets to play games with others.

It was, however, faster at unloading all of the passengers after the flight than the 737. That was the only redeeming quality I could find about this passenger plane.

Once we had landed and gotten off the plane, we whisked ourselves out to collect the checked piece of baggage from the baggage claim. It took a while, but that tends to be par for the course for flying to large tourist destinations, like Miami or New York. We then, somehow, made our way up to where our shuttle van would collect us from the airport.

It was a long wait and the warm, humid air is absurdly different from Oregon air. It feels like any minute I will see shivering swimmers, fresh out of the Oregon City pool, and yet I know it's too warm for anybody to be shivering unless they were, like me, sleeping in an air conditioned room.

At this point, I have "slept" my first Floridan night on about 3 and a half to four hours of sleep. I really hope I get more, or else the Disney Cruise is going to be miserable

~Joshua~