3-Day Journey: Day 0

I start at day zero, because that is my travel day to even get to Seattle.

My plane was scheduled to depart Bend/Redmond at 6am. I figured to be safe, I would leave the house at 4:30am and get there safely at 5am. If I got up at 3am, I could unload the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, make a lunch for Bob and Katya and even swing by Starbucks to get myself a nice latte before I had to head to the airport.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.

Logan woke up with a nightmare (again) at 2am. I got up and got him back to sleep. I debated on going back to bed, but figured I would benefit from that extra 30 or so minutes of sleep. Well, I opened my eyes a while later and looked at the alarm to see a red glowing 4:45 staring back at me. I had that horrid feeling of dread that you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize that you are in a really, really bad spot. I quite literally threw clothes on, grabbed my shoes, kissed a bleary eyed Bob goodbye and ran downstairs. I grabbed my purse and ran to the car. I believe that I might have exceeded the speed limit just a bit in my haste to the airport. The whole time I was talking to the Uni verse and asking for assistance with red lights.

I pulled into the airport at 5:15am grabbed my bags (lucky Bob had loaded them the night before) and what looked like it was important off of the front seat of my car (leaving the decapitated Barbie) and ran into the airport. I figured that now that I was there, it was smooth sailing. I have never had a problem at the airport in Redmond – until now. I walked in and the line for Horizon was wrapped around the wall and down to the entrance almost. And it wasn’t moving. Turns out an earlier flight had mechanical problems and 50 people had to be re-routed. Then once I was finally checked in I got to go and stand in the even LONGER security line. Once I finally got through I had to run to my plane. I made it.

Michelle picked me up at baggage claim and we headed straight to Pikes Place where we noshed on French pastry and lattes. So yum. We grabbed some extra for Friday morning (who couldn’t use a chocolate croissant?) and headed to do some last minute shopping at Target. Neither of us had clothes pins in our camping stash.

We got back to her house, re-packed our bags and double checked our packing lists to make sure we didn’t forget anything. We loaded our stuff into the car and headed to Bellevue to our hotel. It wasn’t until we were at the hotel that I realized I had forgotten our extra pastries and fruit at her house in the fridge. I almost died.

By this time we were completely nervous and just sat in the happy hour area eating chips with salsa and sipping Diet Coke watching as all these people came streaming into the hotel wearing nothing but pink. It was a pink fest. Michelle and I weren’t exactly sure what we had signed ourselves up for .

Our breakfast was going to be available at 4am and our shuttle to the event area was leaving at 4:30am so we showered and headed to bed early.