Holiday Trip, Day 1

We spent the night last night in Portland so we did not have to deal with questionable roads early this morning. We arrived at PDX at 4:30 AM and found a packed house! We are not the only family trying to get out of town today. An hour and a half later, we are finally through the check in process (with two very tired girls) and we are rushing to get to our plane. We get on the plane and all seems to be well with our trip.

The plane is de-iced and the plane approaches the runway....then stops! The pilot comes on and announces that we have to wait on the runway for about 1 hour until we are cleared to take off because of weather in Minneapolis. The groans from the plane were in stereo.

We finally take off and have a smooth flight. Nora Beth is kept happy watching movies on my laptop and Shianne reads while I sleep. Lamar talked football with everyone around who would talk and played with his new MP3 player.

Upon approaching Minneapolis, we get the word that there is to much snow on the runways and we would have to circle for another hour until they are cleared. At this point we are all tired and hungry.

Luggage and rental car went smoothly. We make it out of the airport and realize that driving was not going to be any fun. Snow everywhere! No one driving in actual lanes - it was a free for all on the freeway.

We arrived at the hotel, unloaded and headed to the downtown area to find some food. We end up getting lost in the skyway system, but finally find a place to eat. There was going to be a parade downtown that we thought the girls would like. As soon as we stepped outside we realized that we did not have it in us to brave the cold. -13 is just too cold for me to be outside. Back to the hotel we went for dessert and a warm bath.

Tomorrow we are going to the Viking Game - a highlight for Lamar.

So the day did not go as planned, there were some delays, but as a whole, not a complete loss. We arrived safely and are warmly snuggled into bed tonight.