Yesterday we transitioned from California to the Washington/Oregon area. Our time in California was wonderful, and we greatly enjoyed reminiscing (via food!) in places and with people that are dear to us. But we love the Northwest as well, and are grateful to have received a *very* warm welcome and invitation from multiple congregations to come and share.
I arranged our exit through the Santa Barbara Airport (SBA), a delightfully intimate airport with four gates. The kids flew out at 2:00pm on Southwest Airlines bound for Phoenix, with a brief stopover in Las Vegas. Gena and I left at 2:16pm on a United flight to Portland, with a stopover in San Francisco.
At least, that was the plan.
Our plane in Santa Barbara had an error code that delayed our departure for nearly 90 minutes, which means we weren’t going to make our connecting flight in San Francisco. While I’m not a huge fan of United Airlines, I must give credit where it is due – they are FAR better communicators than any other airline in the world I’ve flown (and that’s saying something!). Both via their app as well as with text messages they let me know they realized we were going to miss our connecting flight and offered ways to connect with them to explore options.
Within 30 minutes a live person had moved us to the last flight out of San Francisco to Portland. It meant an additional five-hour layover in San Francisco but that’s just life and it wasn’t so bad. We were grateful to board our flight to Portland at 10:30pm!
However that flight was delayed as well in taking off, and we weren’t sure we’d arrive in Portland in time to pick up the rental car before the rental car office closed at 1am. Thanks be to God, when I went – in an uncharacteristic display of optimism – to the rental car office at 1:20am, low and behold there happened to still be someone at the desk, and she was all too happy to ensure I could pick up my vehicle. Oh happy day! Oh frabjous joy! I was able to pick up the car, circle back to the arrivals terminal and load up our luggage. By 2am we were settling in for an overdue and very welcome sleep!
The Nelson Family Indonesia 