THE BIG ADVENTURE PART 1

This is the first in a 3 part blog series about "THE BIG ADVENTURE". The adventure actually started a few months ago when a certain friend mentioned something about the single speed world cyclocross championships in Portland Oregon. I had always wanted to do the SS Worlds but the stars had never aligned and therefore no SS worlds, honestly I had not given it a lot of thought and then I checked the cost on airline tickets and thought wow that is cheap. When I think something is cheap you better believe it is cheap.
I immediately called Diana and asked if she could get off work.I already knew she would be up for going as she has been on several of my adventures and is always up for travel to new places. She put a lot of effort into getting off work, which I really appreciate and it was off to Portland we went.
The actual trip started at 2 am Thursday morning November 5. We woke up threw our luggage in the car and made our way to the Charlotte airport. We arrived at CLT parked the car and caught the shuttle to the airport. Once at the airport we went through the part I find most stressful....checking in, checking bags, going through security. Once this was done we made our way to the correct terminal grabbed a bite to eat and waited to board the plane. From Charlotte we flew to Atlanta and from Atlanta on to Portland. The flights were uneventful,time spent sleeping,watching movies and reading the airline shopping magazine.
We arrived at Portland and proceeded to get our bags and to get a rental car.I had originally got a compact car through Budget. Some guy from Dollar rental car told us the Budget car pickup was not at the airport and for a few extra dollars we could upgrade to a Subaru Forester. We gave this some thought and decided it would make it more convenient to drop the car off at the terminal and the larger size would make transporting the bikes easier. We took the keys to the Subaru and went off to explore Portland and find our rental unit.
The first thing we decided to do was to satisfy our rumbling tummies. We went downtown and ate at Jakes Crawfish house. The food was delicious. Once our stomachs were satisfied we went off to find the rental unit;using the Garmin GPS we located the unit without a glitch. We talked briefly with Ruppert the landlord and then unpacked. I called Murray to let him know we were in town and asked if he could bring the bikes over. Murray is a friend that moved to Portland ~ 6years ago. A great guy and a fellow cyclist. Murray brought the bikes over and did a quick tour of our accommodations for the weekend. We also made dinner plans with Murray and his wife Molly and then Murray was on his way.
Diana and I had a light dinner Thursday, made plans for our Friday day trip and went to bed.
This concludes Part 1 of " The Great Adventure".