State fair to Kentucky

Hey there!

We started this month with our long-awaited trip to the Oregon State Fair. We had planned on going to this event for a bit because the Beach Boys were going to be playing.

Yeah, you read that right. “Were” going to be. They didn’t play. A couple of days before we were scheduled to go, they canceled the performance.

That would’ve been the first time since I’ve seen them live since… 1991 at the Arizona State fair. I can’t remember much. I do remember the music was loud. All of the adults were standing for the performance. This made it impossible for me to see the stage. Yet, I wanted to give my kids a chance to see them live (kinda going full circle). Maybe another time, if there is one. At least we tried.

Since we didn’t go to the concert, we checked out the animal area. I had the boys ride around for a while. Arabella met up with one of her pen pals. Sky knew this pen pal from her high school days.

We spent the next few days trying to get the house in order. Every time, it ended up being a mess again. The day before, and the night before we were to leave for Ohio, we managed to get it (mostly) picked up. Nothing like the last-minute rush.

The next morning, we took the MAX to the airport. We had to take a ride from our house to the MAX, then switch to the red line. We were up at around 4 am that morning, getting everything ready.

The wife dressed the kids in the same color clothing so that we could easily spot them. It worked when we went to Vegas, so we decided to do it again this time.

We then proceeded to security. Handed our passports over (since we don’t have Real ID cards yet). Then the TSA agent says, “Uh, sir, your passport has expired.”

I’m thinking to myself: What? No, no way. I have a valid passport.

When we packed them we might not have checked which one of mine we took. We had taken the one that expired over 10 years ago.

Yep, that’s what happened.

When I asked about returning, they said that I would likely still get through security, but would have to do bit more screening. So that was it and I got through. Then my mind started to worry about getting back across when it came time to end our trip.

Either way, for now, on to the plane. Which was delayed by like an hour or so. Which was unfortunate, since we were two hours early for our gate (as the airline had requested).

After the kids felt like it was forever and a day, we boarded the airplane. Ara, Ezra and the wife sat separately, and the two other boys sat in a different row with me.

It was overall, a smooth flight.

When we arrived at the airport in Kentucky, we searched for our car seats as we had checked them at the boarding gate in Portland. Nobody knew where they were. We spent around 3 hours at the airport trying to find out if they could locate them.

No luck.

The airline decided, after all of that, to loan us car seats that we can use until we return home. We loaded up the car seats and proceeded to dinner.

Ara said we should get chicken. I exclaimed “What a great idea!” We can have Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky! That’s a first.

That is exactly what we did.

We kept driving afterwards to our final destination for the night (our hotel). We had planned to arrive around 11 pm. But there was a 4+ hour delay between the delay in Portland and looking for our car seats in Cincinatti. As a result, we didn’t arrive until nearly 4 am.

Then the hotel told us they cancelled our reservation at 3am. We fought with them and they eventually relented and gave us room keys.

Needless to say, we were tired.

Our trip is underway! Let’s get this thing on the road.

just Pray