USATF Juniors: Greetings from Gate 85

Other than hearing the hole-by-hole account of someone’s golf game, is there anything more tiresome than listening to travel woes from weary, flight-delayed friends? Probably not. But! Consider yourself warned, as our trip out to Oregon has taken some dips and dives. Hint: We’re not there yet. We are currently in San Francisco (Luke Shane would be proud). Unfortunately, we are here a lot longer than we were supposed to be. Our connecting flight to Eugene was canceled, due to mechanical issues or whatever. United was nice enough to book us on another flight – three hours later, and to Portland instead of Eugene. We land in Portland at 9:25 p.m. (our bodies will register that as 12:25 a.m. tomorrow, and our day started many, many hours ago). We will then be rewarded with a two-plus hour drive (for those keeping score at home, and I know you are, it will be 121 miles) from Portland to Eugene. By the time we get there, it will definitely feel like tomorrow … because it WILL be tomorrow. Lovely!

Other travel highlights so far:

--For some reason, our flight from Newark boarded an hour early. We were rewarded for our punctuality by sitting on the runway an extra hour. Nicely done!

--We hit multiple bouts of “weather” (airline pilot vernacular for turbulent, bumpy travel). We were WARNED of this “weather” with jarring pronouncements in our headphones. In particular, this annoyed Dietrich, who was sitting in the aisle seat across from me trying to watch movies. OK! WE GET IT!

--In a fun way to pass the time, I played a computer in backgammon on the screen in front of me on the plane. I went 36-1 against the feckless computer. Take that. Ha!

--Deet and I had dinner at a Chipotle-style airport restaurant called “Andale” (which, I believe, loosely translates to “let’s go! in Spanish”). Funny, that. The cash register malfunctioned and it took the staff about a half hour to fix it. No really. That long. It’s amazing how much patience you have for burritos when you have NOTHING ELSE TO DO FOR THREE HOURS. So, we just stood there waiting. When they finally figured it out, one person said it was “on the house” because we waited so long. How nice. The other person said we owed $33.21 … and waited for payment. So, I paid for dinner. I guess it was “on my house,” huh?

--Thanks to Hild for sending me the link to Alberto Salazar’s War and Peace length rebuttal of all the allegations made against him and the Nike Oregon Project. Again. When you have THREE HOURS TO KILL, this makes for great reading. Only, it’s mostly “war” and very little “peace.” Wow! Coach Alberto went into attack mode, big time. Lots of he said/she said/he said going on here … I’ll let the smarter, more informed folks in the blogosphere sort it all out.

In the meantime, we’re still here at Gate 85. We’re plenty early. They are calling for boarding to Kona, Hawaii, now at the gate. Perhaps we should go there? Might be cooler than Eugene later in the week. OK! Looks like a beautiful night outside in San Francisco …