Tag Archives: flights

Jul11

Montana – flying and Friday

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Thursday and Friday, 10 & 11-June-2021


Thursday, 10-June-2021

Stepping into the Missoula airport from the plane was stepping directly into the 1970s.

I haven’t been in the 1970s before, of course, but… I feel confident that I’m pegging the decade right. Everything was wood panels, brickwork, and interesting mahogany-colored trophy cases of various memorabilia and state-specific nostalgics.

It was interesting. I’d never time-traveled as abruptly as this before, but it felt… kind of right, if that makes sense? I don’t know, just something about the transition from Seattle to Missoula… it felt right to be time traveling.



It’s been ages since I’ve been on a plane, or taken any kind of trip that doesn’t involve lots of driving. Not that I mind driving, of course, but… ya know. You can only get so far in so long by driving. Kind of hard to take a weekend trip to… say… Montana… by driving. It’s take all weekend to get there! And… then you’d be there, and not back for work on Monday morning!

So we took a plane. They’re quicker.


Let me repeat that.

I.

Took a plane.

To go to a place.


YAY PANDEMIC BEING SLIGHTLY LESS INVASIVE!




I’d been able to get out from work a bit early on Thursday, getting myself and Brian to the airport easily in time to have a quick bite of dinner before hopping on a small puddle-jumper up to Seattle… in time to then hop an even smaller puddle jumper out to Missoula.

Clara was waiting for us after we worked our way through the time warp, and together we picked up her rental car and got ourselves driven to the AirBnB that she’d rented. It was beautiful – nicely up a small dirt road, near a fairly large farm, and soon enough we’d crashed for the evening in prep for our adventures!

The AirBnB that Clara had found was beautiful – a guest house above a garage, overlooking a rather huge horse farm. Behind us were deep woods, with trails that we were told led all the way into town some miles away. It was comfy and cozy, and simple enough to get ourselves settled.

Perfectly Montana, in my mind.




Friday, 11-June-2021

Friday dawned nice and early, and we got ourselves moving fairly quickly.

By that, I obviously mean that Brian and Clara made breakfast, and I sat back and enjoyed it.



Our first target of the day was the runners shop to pick up Clara’s race bib for her half-marathon scheduled for the next day – the real core of the entire trip, in fact. With that in mind, let me start from the beginning.

This trip was planned a few months back – Clara had signed up for a race in Montana, and had rented an AirBnB and car already for it. But both were large enough to accommodate a few other people, so I got the invite to join her and Brian if I had some spare time. Interestingly enough, I absolutely did… so a few tickets were bought, and out I flew.

Clara picked up her race packet, and Brian and I looked around. We’d done some research on hikes ahead of time, and had a rather extensive list of possible hikes that we could do… but none had particularly stood out to me as notably better than the others… Thankfully, the runners shop we were in had a beautiful sign set up with various trail conditions – one of which specifically noted the excellent wildflowers that were in bloom as of this morning.

To us, that was enough. After picking up the packet, we zoomed onward, up Mount Jumbo and then over to the Vista Point loop!

They were both lovely hikes, but there isn’t too much to say about them. I enjoyed the views, my knee kind of hurt, and the wildflowers were pretty… though not quite to the same extent as what I’d been lucky enough to see on some of Oregon’s hillsides. They were both concretely pleasant.


Afterward, famished, we made our way to the Lolo Peak Brewery. Brian and Clara had read excellent things about it, so we were quite excited to lay out paws into some good food – especially after all the hiking in the sun! We ordered drinks, appetizers, and meals… and then proceeded to enjoy the drinks while waiting roughly a lifetime for the rest. Turns out, the Pandemic’s impact could still be felt, especially in the service industry… but we persevered, and finally had our gobs stuffed full with dinner.



As a nice bonus, I wasn’t the only one taking pictures this time!

With the permission of Brian and Clara, sit back and enjoy the next gallery worth of excellent shots – some of which actually include me, for once!

See? That’s why I need to remember to bring people along for adventures more often… need my photographers!

Mar25

A Scotland Adventure – Part 11, The journey home

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Hello, and welcome back to your annual story time of Ben and Sarah’s international adventures! Keeping with the tradition of the last few years, Sarah and I visited with her family, this year going back to Scotland.

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Saturday, 04-Jan-2020

 

The end of the adventure went a bit more smoothly than the start, though not quite as easily as we would have hoped… But that’s okay.  Sometimes a bit of a challenge comes up at the last minute – but that doesn’t undo all of the good that happened before.

We left Aberdeen bright and early on Saturday.  Or, early on Saturday, at least… it wasn’t quite late enough in the day for it to be bright out.  One of the downsides of life way up in the North of Scotland.  The weather was lovely though, and Bill and Greta had coffee and snacks waiting for us as soon as we came downstairs.  Not a bad morning, not a bad morning at all.

Our first few flights were easy; no worries and no hassles at all, except for what amazing meal to request, or what weird movie to check out.  It was nice, and gloriously relaxing.

Unfortunately, the flight from San Francisco out to Portland ran into a bit of a challenge – or more accurately, we ran into a challenge getting to the flight.  Getting into the EU from the States is beautifully simple; you walk through the gate, an automated kiosk checks you in, bing bang boom.  Getting back INTO the States, though… that’s a bit different story.

Our flight had landed a little bit later than planned, if I recall correctly, and that little bit was just enough to push it over the edge.  When Customs and Border security was slower than normal, that was the nail in the coffin, and our flight took off with us still trying to get checked back in.  Fortunately there were two more flights to Portland leaving SFO that same evening… unfortunately, they weren’t leaving for almost eight more hours.

So we waited for eight hours, then flew home.

We were excited to see our own bed by that point, I tell you what.  But you know what?  A little challenge at the end of a trip doesn’t make it any less of an excellent trip.  The good experiences we had, and the amazing photos that we took home with us more than make up for any delays in flights or airline battles.

 

Oct12

Traveling from Venezuela to Argentina

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I got up on Monday ready to take on the day; I had woken up early and had my stuff packed up pretty quick, so I spent the rest of the morning grabbing some quick breakfast, wandering around the area, and reading in the hostels library.

Ana and I met up around 1:00, packed the rest of my gear up and stashed it in the hostels saferoom, and then took a walk around the city to see a few last sights before I headed off to the airport. We ate some Cochabas for lunch, and I immediately fell in love with them. Seriously amazing. See the recipe below. After eating we headed into the main city to explore for a bit, going to see the nicer portions that I had missed before. Ana left me for a bit to put an hour or two in at her job, and I spent the time wandering around the financial district of Caracas; marveling at how shining skyscrapers could stand directly next to a cold-war era building that looked like it had been shelled out. Its honestly impressive, and does wonders for making the shiny skyscrapers look even better

While waiting for Ana the skies decided that I CLEARLY wasn’t wet enough, and decided to help me cool down with a quick shower. Luckily I was right near the enteraence to the main mall, so I ducked in and spent the rest of the hour reading from my kindle (stealthily hidden in one of my other books, so I just looked like another Venezuelan dude chilling out with a tattered notebook).

After a bit Ana finished up and we headed back to the Hostel to get my bag. The rest of the evening was pretty standard-issue, though I did get a nice surprise when I went to pay my “exiting fee” from Venezuela: my outbound ticket had already covered it in the price. Nice, don’t need to burn an extra $50, I am not complaining. I got into the airport with just enough time to pick up some food (yay Burger King! I don’t know which is worse: that I ate my first Whopper in Venezuela, or that I paid $9.50 to do so) and make a quick skype call to my mom to let her know that I was fine and boarding successfully. And then we were airborn, heading south to the connector in Brazil.

Side Note: The city lights of the Barrio’s outside Caracas are amazing, and I’m really glad I flew out at Night so I could see them now that I know what they are.

I woke up with a start when the wheels touched the ground; I had slept clean through all the warnings about landing and everything. Impressive. I de-planed, found my gate (where I’d be boarding in 6 hours), and set myself up for a nice internetting session. Not to let life be easy, Sao Paulo’s WiFi is deceptively cheap at $1 an hour or so, but impossible to access unless you’re quite fluent in Portuguese. They even have a language tab that only has one setting: “not a language you speak, sucker!” I tried to bumble my way through it, but in the end contented myself with saved videos and some more reading. Maybe a bit of music too.

My flight boarded smoothly, and I slept through again; both times I had a window seat with the middle empty, so I was feeling pretty good and relaxed once we touched down in Buenos Aires. I had woken up a bit early so that I could fill out the immigration paperwork, thinking I’d be saving myself some time in the lines. Instead, I was carefully and meticulously filling out the form that would herald the destruction of this part of my trip…

 

Yay cliff-hangers! And recipes!

 

Cochabas Recipe (for one person)

  • Cornbread batter (go a bit heavy on the corn though)
  • Butter
  • Cheese (thick white cheese)
  • Ham slices, thin

 

Prep:

  • cook the cornbread batter on a hot skillet exactly as you would a pancake; layer it just as thick
  • once its pretty much done spread some butter on it and let it head butter-side down for a few seconds
  • Put the cheese on half of the “pancake”, and layer the ham on top of it
  • Fold like an omlet
  • let it heat for a bit, flipping it twice or so. Make sure the cheese is nice and gooey.
  • Cut it in half (so its quarters of a circle), and serve!