Mt Hood Part 1 - Outbound

GETTING THERE:

The plan was simple:
Spend Thursday in Dallas in a sales meeting with a client, then fly and be home by 3, giving me ample time to pack, clean up the house (Like many others I like to come home to a clean home), take Karma over to his sitter (Erin) etc. Take a 7am flight to Houston, an 8:50am flight to Portland, followed by an hour drive out to the Hotel up on Mt Hood.

The plan fell apart quickly:
Get an email from Bruce in the afternoon => Houston – Portland flight is cancelled, but Austin Houston isn’t. A little 3way conference call at 5:30pm, and preliminary plan is to possibly try and get out Thursday night of possible. We decide to reconvene at 6:30pm, and we are to be packed and ready. I did some research on the puter on flight options etc. Then literally grabbed the suitcase, threw it on the bed, and just threw clothes, running gear, gels, waterbottle, and other, into the bag, then sat on it to close it. Took Karma for a poop walk. That’s where I do most of my best thinking. The dilemma was that we had Continental tickets. Continental has three HUBS in the US. Cleveland, New Jersey and Houston. To get anywhere from Austin, you must fly through Houston, but the Hurricane is also headed that way. My idea was that we HAVE to get to Houston ASAP, to beat, or at least be able to compete for standby seats on any flights that can eventually lead us to Portland.
Last flight to Houston on Thursday was at 6:30pm, so there’s no way we could hop on that one. At 6:30, Ken, Bruce and I reconvene on the phones, and my idea is adopted: Drive to Houston tonight, so we can talk face to face with an agent and get us on a plane out of Houston. I left my home a mess, a message for Erin to pickup Karma at my house along with all his food, bed, etc, and please check on Pippin if I don't ever make it back. We left Ken’s house at 7:30pm or so, and arrived in Houston at 10’ish. All the way down, the road was ours. However the other side, was packed with cars fleeing the Hurricane, or rather, fleeing “certain death” as the news called it.
We walked around the deserted airport, and by way of a construction worker and then a Cab facilitator, we ended up in the Baggage claim office in the hands of an incredibly nice and dedicated Continental representative. Not only did she help us get booked onto the 2pm Flight to Seattle, but she gave us details on a 9am flight and a 7am flight to try and get on Standby.
Found a hotel, then promptly returned to the airport by 6am. Before we left the hotel, our friend in baggage claim called my cell, bruce’s cell and his wife’s cell to inform us she’d gotten us on to the 9AM flight! Sweet. Even better, we were first in line to for standby on the 7am, and got lucky there too! Landed in Seattle at 11:30am, then made our 3.5 drive down to Mt Hood, stopping at a few places to load up on water, snacks, and lunch.

All in all, quite the adventure, but the stars kept aligning themselves, and it couldn't have gone much smoother given the situation.