We are in Helsinki, it is 0751 Friday morning. We have already showered, dressed, went looking for AAA batteries for Tricia’s keyboard, and ate breakfast at our hotel. Yes, it is early for all that – the background music artist is singing an appropriate song, “In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning” – jet lag is a funny thing. I just realized that the songwriter of that song is definitely not familiar with UK influenced English since “wee” is a synonym of “small” so it is redundant, but I digress.

It has been quite a week – wonderful fatherly pride, a grueling, retro flight experience, and then of course jet lag to top it off.

Twenty-three years ago my son, Aaron, lamented to me that he was not ready to turn thirty, I remember telling him that I was not sure I was ready to admit that I had a thirty year old child. Well, on Saturday we went to a party to celebrate his retirement from the Molalla, Oregon, Police Force. I am not sure I am ready to admit I have a child old enough to retire, but I am sure a proud papa.

It was a wonderful party, seamlessly orchestrated by Kris, Aaron’s wife. It was held at the Molalla Brewery. There were easily over 100 people who came to wish him well. It made me proud to think that he has influenced so many people.

I am proud of so much that he has done in these 53 years. He has Dolphins from his time in the Navy – Dolphins are the designation of a submariner. Then his long career in law enforcement. He has two great kids, my grand kids, and there are also two great-grand kids. Good job Aaron.

So back to our journey. When we first started planning our trip back to France, with a stop in Montenegro, the best value flight we found was on FinnAir, an airline we have had good experience with in the past. We discovered we had to go through Helsinki, so figured, why not stay a couple days just because we have never been there. Our flight would take us from PDX (Portland) to Seattle on Alaska, then a non-stop flight to Helsinki, perfect.

A couple of months ago we received word that the Seattle to Helsinki flight was canceled, so we were rerouted PDX to Chicago on American, then on to Helsinki. That was the plan until about 0700 Tuesday morning of this week as we were two hours away from heading to the airport. I checked email only to find that due to a mechanical problem, the PDX to Chicago flight would get in too late and we would miss our connection to Helsinki.

Soooo… we had a new routing – Portland, Dallas/Fort Worth, London, Helsinki. Such fun.

We ended up in the back of the plane to Texas, cramped of course, but often my status on Alaska brings some little gifts, the flight attendant brought us wine from first-class.

After a 2 1/2 hour layover in Texas, we boarded our flight to Heathrow. The delightfully helpful agent in Portland did what she could to get us in a row with an empty seat between us, so much for “mice and persons” – there were a lot of standby passengers so I took the middle seat and Tricia had the window.

Aside from the cramped conditions it was a complete throwback to the air travel of at least 15+ years ago. The Airbus plane was so old that the trash bin in the lavatory had instructions that it could be used for cigarettes.

Then it was time for dinner, or whatever you call a meal on a flight that is leaving at 2300. The flight attendant paused long enough to ask, with no wasted pleasantries, “pasta or chicken.” We took the chicken. Oh the memories as she handed me a tray with a paper dish covered in plastic with rice and something that I was hoping was actually chicken. As accompaniments there was a roll, some salad looking stuff, and a wedge of “gourmet” processed cheese, which I am not sure had ever been close to a cow. This is how meals were served oh so many years ago.

We made it to London, waited for our FinnAir flight, then sat on the tarmac for almost an hour, arriving into Helsinki around 2200, ten hours later than we anticipated. We finally made it to the hotel at 2330, So ready for bed.

None of this is in any way is meant to be complaining, simply that sometimes travel can be a challenge, but we take what happens and move on.

Yesterday, Thursday, we didn’t do much, just some timezone adjusting. I did get a sketch in at PDX airport, and yesterday. Hopefully more today. Tricia posted today some photos from our wandering yesterday, check it out.

Today a bit more wandering, then tomorrow off to Prague. Thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope your week has few good adventures and moments to capture with pen, ink, and paint.