2nd trip to GA - Grandma's Funeral

A lesson in last-minute travel. Knowing the Katie's grandma was dying, but not quite dead yet, made it hard to plan travel. But we did it. We flew Delta nonstop both ways, first class on the way back! Free checked bag on the way back but had to pay for it on the way down...go figure. The hotel we wanted to stay at (and a lot of the others) were booked solid for weddings and sports tournaments so we tried a new one. Candlewood Suites in Athens, off the Atlanta Hwy. Not bad, but we missed a lot of things we considered standard like a swimming pool! Got to see Ashlie and Hope again. Had dinner w/ Katie's Uncle Rick and Aunt Mary at Outback and breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Saw a lot of family (duh). Rented a car from Avis at the ATL airport again.

GA Trip 2010

We went to GA for 8 days (and only used 4 of Nathan's vacation days...I should get a medal for learning how to manipulate the system like that! ha!) This time we stayed at the SpringHill Suites Marriott in Buford, GA which is right across the street from the Mall of Georgia. We flew Continental, rented a car from Avis from the ATL airport (which moved all the cars to a separate rental car location) and were amazed to see snow there while Oregon was actually having a heat wave! Got to see Ashlie's newest, Hope, who was only a week old! Shipped some of my stuff back UPS in addition to checking bags of old stuffed animals, etc.

Athens, GA - April 2009

Nathan and Katie flew Continental April 15 and April 19. Dave dropped us off at the MAX stop at the Fairgrounds after coming over to meet Peyton and Eli. We got to the airport just after pizzicato closed even though their website said they'd be open 2 more hours (apparently summer hours are posted and they're still operating under winter hours....blah) We met "Apple" at our gate. Apple, or "Manzanita" was an appleheaded chihuahua headed to Costa Rica for a 6 week vacation...with his owner. Such a sweet dog, 18 months old, had never flown before. He only whimpered a little when we took off and landed as he stayed in his under-seat crate the entire trip. We connected in Houston right as restuarants were opening for breakfast. This is the only Starbucks to still serve marble loaf (chocolate/vanilla marble pound cake). We learned to appreciate being "Elite" members as we got to board the plane second to only the first class customers. This proved beneficial on our first flight since the overhead bins filled too early and people had to check bags last minute...I hope they got them at their final destination! The second flight wasn't quite as crowded so we got to share 3 seats together and pretend to sleep on the 2 hr flight to Atlanta. Wayne and Kay were at Hartsfield to pick us up and we did our best to stay awake in the car. We stopped at the new Chick-Fil-A in Monroe and Katie got a stuffed cow for Nathan to take to work since the cows were for children and she is Kay's child =)

We flew down for Kim and Daniel's wedding which was on Saturday but had acouple of festivities to attend before it. First was the shindig at Dave and Buster's in Gwinnett. They serve LOTS of food as a "normal" amount. It wasn't our favorite spot to be but most of that was because of how tired we were after staying up 40 hours or so. Luckily, Carla drove us to and from dinner so we only had to drive to and from Carla's apartment in Athens.

Friday we got biscuits from AJ's where we saw the sweet lady who always works there. I think she remembered us too! Then we had Jason's Deli for lunch before meeting Ashlie and Derrick and Hosea and Levi at the park to play for a bit. Then Wayne and Kay decided we should squeeze in visits to Katie's grandmothers which was fine except for how hurried they were and that they were almost late to Kim and Daniel's rehearsal dinner. The dinner was at Blind Pig Tavern and Nathan tried fried pickles for the first time and liked them! We also got more sweet tea =)

Saturday we stopped by to see Ricky on the way to Kim and Daniel's wedding. Ricky had been in a near-fatal car accident a month before and since Katie had babysat him for 6 years, she really wanted to see him. He looked a lot better and has improved even more since then! We left their house and began our quest to Carlton...just past the middle of nowhere. The wedding was gorgeous and the food delicious. Katie did receive warning that there were ticks in the area (outdoor wedding/reception) so she decided to apply bugspray just in case. We rushed to Laura and Jeremy's reception (their wedding was also the 18th!) but were unable to see them because the bride and groom arrived 1.5 hours late. By that point we had to leave to have dinner with Katie's family in Braselton at the Cracker Barrell. Nathan had been wanting to try hush puppies ever since hearing Brad Paisley's song "Ain't Nothin' Like" where he says you should have "good hush puppies with some sweet iced tea" so he made sure to order some with his dinner.

Sunday Kay cooked breakfast as she and Katie had been trying to figure out Fran's homemade biscuit recipe. It's getting closer. Then it was time to go to the airport. We got drinks once we cleared security but opted to get food in Houston. Once again, Continental overbooked their flight and took forever to get people sorted out as there were three people who had all been given the same seat! Finally we landed in Portland and took the MAX to 170th where Casey picked us up and took us home.

Athens, GA - Nov 2008

Nathan and Katie flew Frontier to Athens Sat Nov 22 to Fri 28. snow in denver made return flight suck.

Athens, GA - July 2008

Nathan and Katie flew Frontier July 19 and Aug 3.

Athens, GA - Feb/Mar 2008

Nathan and Katie flew Frontier Feb 27 and Mar 2nd 2008.

Katie to Oregon - Nov 2007

Katie flew Delta nonstop Monday, November 19, 2007. Nathan called at midnight PT to serve as Katie's alarm clock. Then she drove to her parents' house with her luggage and they took her to the airport. She was able to check two bags free and only had to move one shoe from one bag to another to avoid the heavy bag fee. The flight was not full and she was able to have an empty seat between her and another lady. The plane took forever, literally an hour or so, before it finally took off but then the flight was smooth and even made better time than expected due to wind currents. She was nervous about the time since she had an interview that day but was obviously not supposed to think about time since her watch died midflight. Besides worrying that she would be late for her interview, the only unsettling part was that this was her second flight without a cell phone. (The first was to Seattle in 2006.) Her new cell phone was waiting for her in Oregon and her old one was now her mother's. The flight crew and her seat companion were all pleasant and Anna was waiting for her when she landed and made it to her interview on time.

Her return ticket was unused =)

Nathan to Georgia - Aug/Sept 2007

So I met this girl at Casey's Wedding and we decided that we like each other... We started talking on the phone roughly 4 hours per night and thats when I decided that this was going somewhere. Completely out of character for me, I booked a non-stop ticket with Delta to Atlanta where my future bride would pick me up and take me to Athens and show me what I have been missing my whole life... The South!

My planning went very well on this trip... except that I apparently thought I was superman. I had tickets to see the Beavers season opener against Utah which of course I couldn't miss - the only problem was that it was the night before my flight. I left the game (which we won) and got back to my apartment in Beaverton at about 1AM as the game got over at 11:30.. damn pac-10 pass happy games take forever. My plane was to leave at 6:30 AM so still feeling like the college student I decided to pull an all-nighter and played Wii until the MAX started running at 4:00AM.

I decided to hoof it to the max, which was about 1 mile away, while carrying all of my carry-on stuff. The walk was horrible but at least I was able to pick up 3 red-bulls along the way at the gas station. Long story short, I got to the Airport and made it through security in no time at all. I was tired at this point since I had gotten up 23 hours earlier to go to work before the football game. Instead of napping I played DS, wise move.

The plane was a Boeing 757 which are usually a good ride, and for the most part the turbulence was kept to a minimum. By the time we were over Idaho or so I started to freak out from being tired... I was delerious to the point that I found Shrek 3 (for the second time i saw it) funny. Moral of this story is to sleep on the plane... take drugs and do whatever, it has to happen if you take a red-eye or early morning flight. Afterwards I landed, and walked the mile or so from Terminal E in Atlanta to the terminal where Katie was waiting for me. I was finally able to get some sleep like 40 hours or so after my last nap.

I got to see tons of great stuff in the South... I learned what Chick-fil-a was and that it was awesome. I got to see a SEC football game... PAC-10 is good but the atmosphere at UGA with 92,000 crazy fans was something to behold.. oh yeah and I found out what breathing water was like as I tried to find the gills on the natives.

Highlights:

Little Italy Pizza - Best pizza on the face of the earth, plus an extra large was 13 bux and fed us for 3 days.

Chick-fil-a - Best fast food ever.

Sweet Tea - Nowhere do they serve this in the NW... I miss it - especially from Chick-fil-a.

UGA Football - Good Time!

Friendly People - Southern hospitality is a real thing, people all over are friendly which creeped me out at first being from the Portland area but once I realized that people are just like that it is actually really cool.

Areas for improvement:

Get some sleep - It helps!

Humidity - Not bad once you get used to it but dont make any major plans for the first day or two.

The trip home was on the same kind of plane and was unremarkable except for the lesson I learned of not flying while sick - oh yeah I had a sinus/ear infection while I was there but had a blast anyway. As we decended into PDX my ears never popped. The pressure was horrible and took 3+ weeks and at least 5 doctors visits to clear it up. I am convinced that the crap was still in my head 6 months later. If you get sick... dont fly I beg you.

Overall this trip was one of the best weeks of my life and I recommend that everyone make it to the south at some point, but stay out of Atlanta if you can.

-Nathan