Bringing the Phaeton Home

Wednesday, June 30

Two more hours and we’ll be in San Francisco.  A connecting flight from there will take us to Portland, Oregon where the Phaeton has been in storage since mid-May.

Family and friends have been calling this trip a vacation.  I wish it were.  The purpose of our cross-country flight is to pick up the Phaeton and drive it back to Virginia.  Why can’t the maiden voyage of the coach be a vacation you might ask?  Vacations are supposed to be filled with exploration and adventure.  Unfortunately we don’t have time for that this time.

The flight has been uneventful thus far — that’s the best kind of flight, isn’t it?  Hoping to get better seats, we arrived at Dulles International early.  (The seats we pre-selected mysteriously disappeared from our reservation.)  Our strategy worked; sort of.  We upgraded to Economy Plus (E+) seats — exit row no less — for the San Fran leg; but we weren’t able to do any better for the Portland leg than the last row aisle seats I’d had to settle for during online check-in.  Oh well; it’s just a short flight, so we’ll survive.

It turns out that this Airbus 320 will take us all the way to Portland.

With our new seat assignments in hand, we headed off to get a late lunch.  Strolling up and down terminals C and D — stretching our legs before a nearly 6-hour flight seemed like a good idea — we checked out the various eateries before settling on Gordon Biersch.  My crab cake burger was quite tasty; Mui seemed happy enough with his half turkey sandwich and cup of chicken noodle soup.  A post-lunch stroll; a short wait at the gate.  Before we knew it, we were aboard United Flight 915 for an on-time departure at 4:00p.

The $59/person E+ upgrade has been worth its weight in gold!  Our exit row seats on this A320 have even better legroom than the first class seats we passed on the way to the economy cabin.

No complaints about the legroom on this leg of our flight.

After we reached flight altitude, we placed our bags on the floor to use as foot rests and settled down to watch The Ghost Writer (starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, and Kim Cattral).  The movie was full of suspense and kept our attention, but the plot was a bit convoluted for in-flight entertainment.

This flight’s scheduled to cover 2,419 miles [3,870 km] in 5 hours and 46 minutes. It will take us considerably longer than that to make the return trip in the Phaeton.  Not complaining mind you; we’re looking forward to our maiden voyage.

More later …

Later … aboard UA 544 to Portland

Call it what you want … a demotion … a downgrade … whatever.  From the exit row with extra legroom to the very last row of the economy cabin.  To add salt to the wound, the aircraft that is taking us to Portland is the same one that brought us to San Fran.  And the same crew as well.  Too bad we couldn’t have just stayed aboard and retained our seats.  Oh well; at least we’re on the aisle and not stuck in middle seats.  Besides, flight time is less than two hours, so we’ll survive.  Especially since we have 40-feet [12 m] of legroom to look forward to on our return trip (wink, wink).

UA 915 landed in San Fran about 6:15p, 30 minutes ahead of schedule.  After checking the departures board for our next gate assignment (surprise; it was the same one at which we deplaned), we headed to the food court for a quick bite to eat.  Nothing fancy —  a bit of Chinese food to share; a scoop of ice cream for dessert.  By the time we were at the gate for UA 544 to Portland, it was almost time to board the aircraft.

airplanes flying inside San Francisco Airport?
not really, they’re just for decoration.

chocolate or vanilla?

Boarding was the usual chaos times three, with announcements from three adjacent gates mixing and mingling in the already noisy terminal.  Our at-capacity flight pushed back on time and was wheels up at 8:20p.  No movie this time; just some TV programming.  I opted to blog instead.

We’re already on descent into Portland, so more later …

Later … Red Lion hotel, Portland airport

UA 544 was on the ground ten minutes ahead of schedule.  We were the last to deplane; except for the crew, that is.  We wasted no time locating the shuttle for the Red Lion and making our way to the hotel.  Check-in was swift and soon we were in room 263A.

The room is nice enough — clean and it has all the amenities one might want for an overnight stay.  We could use a couple of stepstools to climb into bed, though.

The Red Lion is convenient to the Portland Airport.

Where’s the stepstool?

Anyway, that wraps up our travel day.  Our body clocks are three hours behind Portland time; bedtime is at hand.  Tomorrow we pick up the Phaeton from storage and begin a new chapter in our travel adventures.

Next Up … Maiden Voyage: Day 1 on the Road