OPERATION WHITE KNIGHTS

Mission Brief: Sister and 2.5 y/o niece start traveling across the country from Mass. to OR. First plane gets late, miss second plane, barely make a plane from Chi-town to portland after a 6 hour layover, and then end up sitting in PDX until 4 am waiting for baggage and trying to get a flight to Medford which is ~300 miles south of PDX. Weather all over the country left a cluster#$%^ situation in many airports leaving patrons sleeping the night over in the airport. NOT cool with a 2 year old. This raises tension in the PDX airport and unfortunately there was a jackass working the baggage claim which climaxed in a literal riot at around 4am. The baggage claim guy said some side comment that "everyone from that flight has gotten their luggage" in front of half a plane of people who had been waiting 5 hours until 4am waiting to get their luggage who were on "that flight." People started screaming, a man threw punches, police came in, guy punch airline worker and kicks at cops, my sister and niece decide that their baggage is not coming and they need to sleep.

Mission: Traverse from Medford to Portland, OR to save stranded family. Journey might include bad weather, long driving hours, and dumb dumb people on the road.

7:10a:
Dad: "BEN! You want to go to Portland to pick them up?"
Me: (thinking in my head) if I go I get to see my niece first and possibly have a big adventure. On the negative side I might die of a horrid snow accident.
Me: "yea... let me wake up"
Dad: "Be ready in 5 min"

7:45a:
We've been on the road for 25 min and we are beginning to the conditions getting bad. We should of seen it coming...

8:10a:
Dad's a champ driver and has it under control but there are people with no chains and rear wheel drive passing our 4 wheel drive pickup and are destined for disaster. It's all fun and game until...

8:13a: (i totally estimated the time and 8:15 would of been too perfect...)
two laned highway road in the snow. We're on the left and in front of us is a yellow nissan xterra who has no clue what he's doing. On the right is a big f-350 pulling a trailor full of some kind of equipment. The xterras right wheel catches some snow, he over corrects, and starts on what appears to be a hollywood stunt. He slides a perfect 180 degree turn pulling a u-turn in front of the big truck and ends up parallel parking backwards on the other side of the road he started on and everyone involved is going about 45 mph. One look at his face and I knew the truth: his pants were loaded with an explosion of "I-nearly-died"

8:20a:
2nd car in the ditch. The is one of many.

8:23a:

There IS a road in the picture. One of the funnest parts of not having lines on the road is that you get to "make them up" according to my dad. Average speed of snowy part of trip: 15 mph

8:56a:This one had been abandoned for awhile I guess.

2:30p:
We arrive and pick them up. Miraculously the luggage was standing the in the baggage place like they said and my niece had somehow been the angel of all things traveling: no hissy fits, calm the entire time, and sweet. My sister was exhausted and we began our return travel. Was it all worth it? You tell me:


10:23p:
We arrive back home after a 15 hour mission to rescue the fam. Everyone had napped at some point. The niece has energy but we're all retiring to sleep VERY soon.

DEBRIEF:
Mission time: 15 hours
Miles Traveled: 585
Time spent not driving: 1.5 hrs
Cars found in snow related accidents: 8
Casualties: 0
Accidents: 0
Happy Families: 1

MISSION COMPLETE