Paris or bust

or as I like to think of it...Paris or bust

Flying standby has perks, like, super-cheap tickets, free drink coupons and feeling like you can go anywhere. It also has downsides, such as, being without an actual seat on the airplane...it's not like the bus where you can still get on and hold the rail, swaying with every turn and avoiding the stare of the creepy old guy in the priority seating area.

We spent an entire working day at the airport on Thursday, hoping for seats that would get us to a connection hub (Atlanta, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City), so we could fly out to Paris. I have had enormous success flying standby...not this day. Three potential flights and...nothing. The best that can be said about our day at the airport was that the server at the Laurelwood pub in concourse A let us order beer at 6:45am and that Andy was gracious enough to get up before dawn and take us to there in the first place.

Apparently there's some event going on in the south this weekend that people wanted to go to...and therefore crowded the flights. sheesh. We were invited by the kind folks at the airline to come back tomorrow morning and try again. After thinking through all possible scenarios we realized that our already quick trip to Paris would be ridiculously short and we would have zero chance of attending the wedding that was bringing us there in the first place. So we gave up and hopped the Max home.

So, mourning our lost trip, we conceived another, switched some baggage around, got in the car and headed south to a B&B in Bend for the weekend.




Instead of capturing centuries old cathedrals, paintings and parks we took in ancient mountains. Instead of walking along the Seine, we hiked next to the Deschutes River. Instead of enjoying fine wine and a baguette at an outdoor cafe, we sampled beer and northwest food fare overlooking Mirror Pond.



We hiked, took advantage of the many amenities at the B&B (including a nine-hole disc golf course), sampled beer from the local breweries and met up with a former classmate from Davis, currently in the employ of Deschutes who treated us to a tour and sampling at the brewing facility. Time well spent.













...and as an aside, I think I'm developing some psychic capabilities...
We enjoyed the drive to Bend with the sunroof open for the majority of the trip, but I started to feel a little chilly through the mountain pass and after awhile closed it. Not 30 seconds later a large splat of bird shit hit the sunroof. Brilliant timing eh? Apparently it required a photo.