Dennis's Take on getting to Idaho

Thursday Feb 18^th

     After a week of checking flight loads, Lisa calls me to say we were going to head to Seattle since the flights there had been boarding standbys whereas the flights to Portland had not been able to clear standbys all morning, plus there were more flights to Seattle. This trip is loaded with firsts (firsts for this year long adventure that is), first time we did not get on the flight and had to be rolled over to the next flight (glad there was another one), which led to a short ride on the Skylink to Terminal C and then the wait began. Lisa had her iPad and was watching as our names moved up the list and were finally called as we got the last two seats for our first night time departure and our first flight of more than 1 hour and 30 minutes. Three hours and 52 minutes later we arrived in Seattle. This is the first time we had reached our destination and did not have a hotel for the evening. We had one in Portland, but remember we ended up in Seattle. LaQuinta had the most reasonable rates and even offered an airline rate with shuttle service to the hotel and back to the airport in the morning. Seven hours later we were back at the airport for our short flight to Spokane. Finally, on Southwest Airlines for the first time of this year long adventure. We get to our gate an hour and a half before departure and were issued boarding passes as the flight was not booked to capacity. Pulling into the gate was our plane which was none other than Silver One in its new livery with the Silver One logo on each side. Since we had boarding passes and the plane was in the gate I decided to cancel the car reservation for Seattle. We had that just in case we couldn’t get to the Spokane area and had to drive to Missoula, Montana. All set for boarding and the Ops Agent advised the plane had a mechanical issue and the mechanics were being called. First delayed flight and the first words from Lisa were, “you just cancelled the car reservation and now what if the flight cancels?” I assured her that the flight would go since it was continuing on to Portland, with connections to Las Vegas and on to Oklahoma City. and all those flight were booked full. Our 8:30 departure time rolled past and at 9:15 the agent made the announcement that if you wanted to stretch your legs or go get a bite to eat that we had approximately 20 minutes before we knew if the flight would go with a 10:00 departure. The agent makes the next announcement that they had found another plane and we would now be boarding at the next gate. So much for the ride on Silver One. Once we got on, there were plenty of seats since 27 connecting passengers were rerouted. It was only a forty minute flight to Spokane. Once we were on the ground the captain told us we would have to wait for a gate since we were late and ours was taken.  It would be about ten minutes for the gate to be available. Glad to be in Spokane and we were only an hour and 35 minutes delayed. Off to the get the Alamo car when another first comes along. The agent said the car was brand new and we would be the first to rent it, it had all of 3 miles on the odometer. We opted for insurance since the driving conditions would not be the best in the mountains we were getting ready to drive through and after the rock to the windshield on the previous trip, I felt we needed it. Lucky for us we did not have a need for the insurance, however, it was reassuring as the roads were snow and icy along the way through the mountains. Since Southwest got us to the area I told Lisa I would have to do my first entry on the blog. Glad we got to Spokane and then to lunch in Idaho, a short 30 minute drove to the east.