Last week Miranda and I decided to test out the whole non-rev thing for the first time. We debated on a few different places, but our criteria were basic: somewhere cooler, somewhere COOLer, and not already overbooked. After looking at some options, we decided that Portland would be a great 24/hr stop.
And then they legalized marijuana! You wouldn’t think this would affect anything, but our flight went from being 3/4 booked to overbooked essentially overnight. When a flight is overbooked and you’re flying non-rev (non-revenue) you quickly get a pretty dismal look at the whole situation. But luckily, if you don’t make it on the first flight you’re rolled over to the next one so we figured, “Worst case scenario, we have to wait.”
Fast forward to the day of, Friday at approx. 3:00 p.m. Miranda rushes home after work where I am already waiting, by the time we get to the airport it’s 4:20, our flight boards at 4:35. The guest agent tells us, “There’s no way I can get you on now. You’re too late!” But we began batting our lashes and luckily she was able to print my ticket. We race through TSA and then literally sprint to our gate because now it is 4:28 p.m. and we still need to check-in at the gate. We enter at C20, our gate is C2. THIS IS BAD. Running without my shoes on, we finally make it. The guest agent tells us there’s a slim chance we’ll get on…so we wait. “Smothers please confirm check in.” “Smothers please come to the counter.” “Smothers, final boarding call.”
Thank you to the Smothers!
Our names are then called and we make it on the plane! What a whirlwind. This is Miranda’s first time flying (outside of being a baby) so this entire ordeal was exhausting. The guy sitting next to us was super nice and gave us much-needed snacks. When we landed and stepped out of PDX it was the most beautiful thing ever. And COOL. Oh, thank goodness to get away from Texas heat. After another ordeal with our Lyft driver, we finally make it to the Jupiter Hotel, a boutique style renovated motor-in with an awesome lounge and great nearby food. Fantastic customer service and we literally booked the room as we were boarding the plane!
That night we decided to grab an easy, cheap dinner so we walked a block down to Sizzle Pie (Yelp review here) and got some great za before catching an Uber to a dispensary in Washington (just over the bridge, about a 15-minute drive). Our Uber driver was FANTASTIC and waited for us as we purchased a couple things. We didn’t come to Portland to do this, but we figured why not try it out? When in Rome… Once we got home we turned down for an early start to our day.
Around 6 a.m., Miranda and I realize we can no longer sleep (whaddup Texas time) and we decide that we should go ahead and head out to Voodoo Doughnuts, the whole purpose of the trip. Our Uber takes us over and luckily there was no line! What a cool place, like seriously. The inside is awesome and breezy, with a ton of outdoor seating across from a window operated coffee shop. We got six different donuts to share which we ended up giving the rest of to a homeless drag queen that offered to buy Miranda coffee. After this, we walked to “china town” for some photo-ops and then caught a Lyft to the base of Pittock Mansion where we would hike roughly a mile to the top (this would be our first legit hike since we were kids). SO BEAUTIFUL. And apparently a very easy hike because runners were passing us left and right! I made sure to wear my Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor to track how many calories I was burning. A huge part of all of this traveling stems from my (and our) desire to get creative with workouts. What is more fun than taking your workout to a completely different state?
At the top, you get amazing views of Portland, I mean, breathtaking. It was a wonderful 66 degrees the whole time. All the photos that we take are on our iPhones, of which I have an iPhone 6. After hiking back down, we caught a ride to the hotel where we cleaned up, packed up, and then headed to the famous Saturday Market. There we were handed some free cookies by a cult, which Miranda ate anyways. We bought organic dog treats for our pooches and then headed to the airport where we upgraded our seats to first class! Flying on a holiday (4th of July) meant an empty plane! This would be Miranda’s first, first class trip and the flight attendants really pampered her (I let them know it was her second flight ever!) and Miranda may have gotten a little tipsy. Oops! Either way, we landed at 7:05 p.m., exactly 26 hours (really 24 with the time change) later.
