The rest of the story...and Thanksgiving too!

The saga continued as we went to the airport Tuesday morning to catch our 9am flight. We were checking in and they told us that we were in fact on the 5pm flight not the 9am flight. This was a breaking point for both Derek and I as that was the last thing we wanted to hear. We spent the next half hour on the phone with Air Canada trying to figure out what went wrong and what they were going to do about it. They were completely useless and unsympathectic at our situation and they were not going to do a darn thing to help us. After days of annoyance with the airline and being stuck in Portland we decided to rent a car and get home!! We went to the car rental area at the airport and went from place to place asking if they did "one way to Vancouver BC". No, no, no, and no! Finally the last one we went to had one car they needed retunred to Canada and we could be the lucky ones to drive it there. What a relief! We hoped in our front wheel drive Ford Taurus and headed North. Once we were getting near Olympia we began to see more and more snow on the sides of the road soon followed by ice and snow on the highway. The right 2 lanes were pretty clear but the far left lane (the "fast" lane) was pretty iced over. We stayed right and witnessed nearly 3 accidents in the left lane. It was intense. We saw dozens of abandoned cars burried by the snow on the sides of I-5, some even facing backwards and we could only imagine how they got into that position. The roads got a little better as we went through Seattle then quickly turned worse as we approached Bellingham. From Bellingham to the border it was like we were drving on an ice skating rink, I don't think we went more than 25 miles per hour. Luckily, being the Oregonian I love, Derek knows how to drive in this stuff, it's the other people that freak me out! The best was when we would see people driving on the clear roads (with maybe a little slush) with full on chains on their tires. We laughed at that! We were happily surprised to see only about 3 cars at the border and we were home in no time! Ultimately we decided that waiting for the 5pm flight would have been a batter and safer option at the end of the day, but we were so antsy to get home that renting a car seemed the most logical at the time. Most importantly is that we made it home safe and we resumed our lives Wednesday morning as normal.
Now I can rewind a bit to Thanksgiving day. As you will see from the pictures, the day began with a hike in the (unexpected) snow at Sahalie Falls. It was gorgeous and the snow was so fresh and soft that it didn't even feel cold! After a hot shower and feeling refreshed, my sister, Annie, and I began cooking the feast. It took us allllll day to cook that meal. Little did we know it would basically just be the two of us doing all the work. We didn't eat until about 8:30pm, I still can't believe how long it took. We enjoyed a big family gathering with tons of food, just as Thanksgiving should be. We followed that by playing a silly Disney trivia game with all my sisters, we had a blast and laughed a lot. That was basically it for the day and my parents and little sisters and brother headed back home late the following morning. It was a short trip for them but ours continued on with a day full of movies, games and leftovers with my big sisters. Derek joined us later for some Cranium and speed scrabble. What a great day with absolutely no shopping! The following morning (Saturday) Derek and I headed into Eugene where I was able to have lunch and coffee with my great friend, Ashley. We headed staright out to Forrest Grove to spend a night with Dereks dad and stepmom, we had a nice evening filled with chatting, picture viewing and a yummy dinner! Sunday morning we made our way to Portland in anticipation of flying out later that day but.....you know the story from there. Enjoy the pics!

American Thanksgiving weekend - November 2006