I love to watch people taking airplane trips in movies. Not the modern ones, but old movies from the 1940s. The glamorously dressed man and woman casually walk up to the airline representative, casually ask for a ticket to New York or Paris, and then stroll on to the plane where they have a beautiful young women wait on them. And need I say that there is always a lot of space?
The beginning of our summer adventure, our first real trip since 2019, lacked any of this glamor. We took a cheap flight from Medford to Portland last night, and need I say that the Bombarier jet provided only a fraction of that woman’s legroom?
We spent the night at the Radisson “Country Inn.” I picked this spot, dear reader, because it was cheap and had a free shuttle from the airport. I am not sure what exactly make it a country inn other than thed doughy biscuits with gloppy sausage gravy served for breakfast. Unless, perhaps it is a tacky little gazebo right just off the parking lot.
The motto of this chain, as written on their shuttle, is “I love this country.” As I walked through the parking lot, I wondered if that was what had attracted the driver of this Prius with not-your-usual Portland decals.
Ellen, my sister, and Mike, her husband picked us up at the hotel and we went to a really good Thai restaurant on Sandy for lunch. Ellen is the new dean of the College of Design at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. She and Mike used to live in Portland, and they still kept their house here with the idea of living here when they retire, and they have been spending their summers back in Oregon for many years.
After lunch, we went back to the airport. We decided to fly Icelandair to Scotland because we could get a free stopover in Iceland on the way. We on our way this evening. Icelandair has two classes of service on their planes, economy and "Saga Class." The latter was not all that much more expensive than economy and I always like to make sure Mr. Pratt has enough legroom for his six feet and five inches. And for that it was worth it. Other than that, Saga Class sort of seems like flying first class on an American flight to Dallas. Yeah, the seats are a little bigger and there's more legroom. but other than that ... well, it's hardly Emirates.
