Portland Trip

Like I said in my last blog traveling with the road crew is an adventure and our trip last weekend to Oregon provided some more writing material for the book.

The trip started at Abilene Regional and the first thing I hear when we get there is that our flight had been canceled. That is not a good thing when you are the one that was in charge of the reservations, especially with this crew. At some point our flight had been changed to 9:30 a.m. instead of the 2:30 we had arrived for. Fortunately American was able to get us on to a flight out of Dallas, but it did not leave until 9:15. That meant we had a six-hour layover in Dallas. The good news we got on a direct flight to Portland rather than to San Francisco and then to Portland.

Now how do you kill six hours in the Dallas airport? Fortunately for us John Neese’s girlfriend Melissa Lohnes lives and works close by and she offered to take us to dinner. That was a very nice gesture on her part, the problem was she drives a Pathfinder. Going to the restaurant it was Tim McCarry in the front seat, Al Pickett, Phil Ashby and I in the middle seat and Neese in the area behind the back seat. Neese by far had the most room of the four of us in the back.

After a very nice meal we made a trip to Barnes and Noble to get some reading material. It was only about two blocks, but it had to feel like two hours for Phil, who was stuck in the back seat between Tim and I (if you don’t know us we are two, how do I say this, portly fellows). He says he doesn’t need a chiropractor anymore because everything in his body was popped into place.

Once we finally got back to the airport we had a very uneventful flight. If you are going to have a three and a half hour flight and not be in first class it is always nice to be in the first row of coach with some extra leg room. It happened that is where my seat was. We finally arrived in Portland at about 11:30 PST and we got our rental car and to our hotel at about 12:30.

The next day we get up and around and we are going to look for some lunch. The boys want some seafood (I don’t eat things out of the water) so we type into the Hertz Never Lost system seafood and Tim decides on a place called the Dolphin. We travel to the Dolphin about 10 miles away and pull into the parking lot and see that the Dolphin is not only a seafood place, but also a place for exotic dancers. So we decide to move on down the road. We go to another seafood place that was very nice and they say the seafood was good. I had a club sandwich that was really good. We sat outside and it was about 68 degrees and sunny, a perfect day in Oregon. John, Tim and Phil had a Marionberry (not the former D.C. mayor according to Lexi our waitress) cobbler. Cobbler to them means a pie. Here is a picture of Tim’s pie as we are leaving and Phil’s pie (you decide which is which.)



After the meal we make the trip over to McMinnville. It was a very nice area and the whole countryside is covered with nurseries, wineries and about every type of crop you can imagine. We make our way to a space museum and I am not one that is awed by museums that much, but the Spruce Goose was an amazing site. I have attached video and a picture of the amazing plane that is wider than a football field. It was a great learning experience about something I had very limited knowledge. Here is a not very good picture from inside the big bird.







We then checked out the McMinnville downtown and headed over to the football field. It is a nice old downtown area. The campus is a big campus for the size of school and what amazes me about the whole area is the number of hanging plants. There are hanging from about every pole in town. After scoping out the campus, we headed back to the hotel. It was 34 miles and took us just over an hour. Needless to say it is not like driving to Alpine.

We were in a hurry to get back to the hotel to see my alma mater Oklahoma State play Troy in football. It was not a pretty game to watch. It was the most embarrassing loss since I have been a Cowboy fan. They didn’t lose to the Men of Troy or even to Troy Aikman, they lost to Troy for crying out loud. I did feel the need to text Zach Pickelman during the game and tell him that his Michigan team is not the worst team in a power conference in America. I think my Cowboys have that covered. This could be the year for Baylor, oh wait it can’t get that bad can it.

After the game was over it was time for bed. Normally I am not out cold by 10 o’clock, but I think the travel and time difference caught up with me. On Saturday when we woke up it was a great day outside. It was probably in the low 50’s and it had the crisp fall feel. We went to McMinnville and had breakfast (without the s), walked around downtown and headed to the game.

The game was quite entertaining if you like offense. Linfield is a unique place and their stadium was originally built in the 1920’s. It had covered seating on the home side and it turned out to be a great day for football. The Cowboys fought hard, but could not keep the Wildcats off the scoreboard and for the first time since the first year of the Jimmie Keeling era the Cowboys have lost the first two games of the season.

On Saturday night we headed into Portland for a nice meal at another seafood place. It was right on the river and in the middle of the entertainment district. We had to be at the airport by 5:30 a.m. so it was a short night and we made it home rather uneventfully on Sunday.

Other happenings from around the HSU campus this week
Congrats to the soccer teams for starting 2-0 in conference play. The men won their first two games of the year and both were one-goal games. Jorge Vega scored three goals and the young Cowboys proved the will be a force to be reckoned with in the ASC this year.

It was disappointing to hear that All-American Amy Kuykendall tore her ACL against Texas Lutheran. She is really a phenomenal player. It will definitely hurt the Cowgirls offensively, but if there is one coach that I think can lose his best player and All-American and still come out with results it is Marcus Wood. He beat a No. 1 Trinity team a few years ago with basically nine healthy bodies in the NCAA Tournament. He has proven year in and year out he can make adjustments on his team and keep them in the upper echelon of the teams in the NCAA Tournament. We hope for a speedy recovery for Amy.

The volleyball team went 2-0 last weekend and then last night beat a previously unbeaten team in McMurry to move to 3-0 in conference action. It was the home debut for Sabrina Bingham and there was a great crowd on hand.

The Cowgirl tennis team won five singles flights and two doubles flights at the ASC Individual Tournament. The Cowboys won flight one doubles and flight nine singles. HSU has won seven straight ASC women’s titles and six in a row for the men.

The women’s golf team beat five other ASC schools to win the UT-Dallas Invitational in their first tournament of the year. Freshman Ashley Luecke won the individual title by 11 strokes. Congrats to the Cowgirls.