With a ten AM scheduled departure, the alarm we set last night wakes us at 5:30 and we walk into the breakfast room not long after; and by seven we’re headed down the hall, wheeling all of our belongings - the two bike boxes and four panniers - ahead of us on a baggage cart that had been left in the hallway.  We’re briefly discouraged when we come to the British Airways check-in area and find it thoroughly jammed with folks lined up and performing the slow shuffle toward the front.

Fortunately though they’re not shuffling toward our desk, which is on the other side of them.  It’s a challenge maneuvering my very wide load through the crowd but gradually the waters part and we make it through.  On the opposite side we find our gate and queue up behind the three other people ahead of us.

Check-in goes smoothly.  The agent is courteous, speaks fluent English, doesn’t blanch at the bike boxes, and five or ten minutes later we’re wheeling the bikes to the oversized baggage gate just around the corner at counter 370.  This second encounter doesn’t go as well though.  The agent there doesn’t speak any English at all but after looking at our boxes doesn’t think they belong here.  He makes a phone call that apparently no one picks up at the other end and we wait an uncomfortable five or ten minutes when finally I walk back to the British Airways desk where I learn that I misheard or misremembered an important detail.  We want counter 470, not 370.

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Patrick O'HaraGlad you included this shot of the things touring cyclists must do!
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There are two legs to the flight home, broken by a three hour layover in London Heathrow.  It’s a good thing we’ve booked a flight with such a long layover because it doesn’t stress us much when our captain announces not long after we’ve boarded that we’ll be sitting on the tarmac for an hour before takeoff for some reason.

Other than that though, it’s an excellent flight and I’ve got a window seat so I can appreciate the clear views when we finally leave the ground.  We’re not far inland when the land below disappears below the clouds, but when I wake up later after a nap we’re approaching the English Channel and I’m treated to another set of marvelous views of coastal France and England.

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The second flight is considerably less interesting and enjoyable.  For one thing it’s thrice as long at ten hours.  For another, we’re in the very last row of the plane in the middle section, far from the nearest window.  Time goes very slowly for me, but Rachael is buried in a good book and comes through reasonably well.  In what we think is a first for her on an overseas flight she doesn’t watch even a single film.  I occupy my time by weeding through the 12,000 images on my iPad, being amazed and delighted to be reminded of one time after another from the last nine months I’d totally forgotten about.

Arrival in Portland really couldn’t go  any better.  Our Global Entry memberships let us cut ahead of nearly everyone else on the plane - I think it takes us maybe two or three minutes.  It’s a very short queue in the GE line, and the procedure is perfunctory: when we come to the front of the line we stand in front of a kiosk that takes our photo, and then we walk up to the agent.  She smiles, says “Hello, Scott” and waves me on.  I don’t even have to show my passport.  

Baggage claim is a little more stressful though.  We have three pieces of checked luggage - the two bikes of course, and my two panniers strapped together as a unit.  The panniers must be about the very last item to drop onto the conveyer belt, and by the time it does we’ve about given up hope.  And then we go over to the oversized baggage window and it’s the same situation.  Finally they get dropped though and we load everything onto a baggage cart and start wheeling our way out.  Oh, and there’s one nice change since we were here now - baggage carts are free at PDX now!

There’s some sort of major construction project underway at the airport and it’s a bit of a journey getting out of the airport.  It would be terrible with the bikes without a cart, but with them it’s just awkward.  It’s interesting wheeling them down hallways and around corners, with narrow spots where the bikes (loaded landscape) barely fit through.  This ends when we come to a bus.  The carts get left behind, and two workers are attending to help us load the bikes onto the bus.

Off the bus, a different set of workers is waiting to help us reload the bikes onto a different cart; and they get loaded portrait this time because I’m told that it’s the only way they’ll fit through the narrow gaps ahead.  So a second interesting long, crooked hallway walk ensues, but this one is different because I’m walking blind and can’t see where I’m going since the bike boxes block my view so Rachael acts as a navigator.

And then we pass through a set of doors and are startled by where we’ve arrived: we’re outside of the terminal, on the sidewalk where cars are lined up to pick up arriving passengers.  It’s perfect!  We unload the boxes here and I open them up and have at reassembling them.  And I only have to open one, because the tape ruptured on the other one during the flight; but fortunately nothing seems to have fallen out and turned up missing.

While I’m busy pulling out bikes and components, pulling pannier covers off the rotors, cutting plastic off the drive trains, reattaching the handlebars and so on, Rachael makes a call.  And ten minutes later our chariot arrives just as I’m finishing bolting on the last handlebar.  Perfect timing!

Our charioteer?  CycleBlazer Jonathan Hecht, who very generously offered to pick us up and give us a ride to the apartment we’ve booked in the Pearl District.  We are so, so grateful to Jonathan, who contacted me maybe a month ago with this very generous offer.  Thanks, Jonathan!

Were checked in to our new place by 6:30, and to my surprise we both have enough steam left to walk over to Safeway where Rachael picks up some groceries while I walk another few blocks to Elizabeth’s where I reclaim the Raven and pick up our nine months of mail before driving back to get Rachael.  We’re back by eight and ready to call it a night.  Really, things could hardly have gone better.

Except for the unfortunate detail that we both have colds.