The Trials and Tribulations of Traveling

My buddy Josh has to travel for work every week, and I just don’t know how he does it. I used to love to travel, but now it is such a pain in the arse. If you read my previous post, I just got back from a trip to Salt Lake and Portland to catch U2. Everything was pretty smooth between Denver and Salt Lake. Flight was smooth and on time. We stayed at a convenient hotel near the venue, and no one tried to convert us to the Mormon religion. SLC is a clean, friendly city that is going through much of the commercial boom that Denver is also going through. BTW, if you are ever in SLC, go to Squatters. It is a brew pub in the downtown area with some great beer and food.

The traveling went south (not literally) for our leg from SLC to Portland. A nasty storm moved in to Northern California and Oregon, and we had a connection in San Francisco. Our flight was delayed three hours, but fortunately, the Colts-Chargers game was on TV in the airport. When we got off the plane in SF, we found out our flight to Portland was cancelled. We were placed on the stand by list and hoped to catch one of the next three flights for Portland. We didn’t get on the next one to leave, and then the other two were cancelled. So we stayed at a ghetto Travel Lodge and hopped on a 6 am flight to Portland the next day. The storm had hit Portland with wind, rain, snow, and freezing rain. Our hotel was right across from a light rail station, so we hopped on the train and headed into downtown. Our train stopped at the third stop, and we sat, and sat, and sat. Turns out another train was stuck at the previous stop. So we got off the train in the freezing cold wind and rain and tried to figure out where the heck we were and how to get to the hotel. We jumped on a bus that was heading into the city, and the personality challenged bus driver told us when to get off. We were supposed to wait for another bus, but we saw the hotel was only a few blocks away, and decided it would be quicker to walk in the rain than wait for another bus.

We didn’t get to see much of Portland, as we were beat from the traveling, and wanted to rest up before the concert. Our flight out the next day also left at 6 am and had a connection through LA, which was rather frustrating, as a direct flight to Denver was leaving at the gate next to ours. However, in LAX, I saw this girl who looked really familiar rushing down the concourse. Then I saw her blonde, bony, big sunglasses sister, and immediately knew who it was. It was Nicky and Paris “that’s so hot” Hilton. Too funny.

We made it to all the shows and arrived home safely, and I only had one leg with an obnoxious kid or screaming baby in front of or behind me. I am not in the mood for anymore traveling for quite awhile. It sucks that the actual act of traveling can make you not want to go somewhere.