Flight the Third

Today Clara climbed on a plane for her third airplane trip. We are heading to the west coast for a Thanksgiving vacation with Kristin’s family. Our flight

Today was our third plane trip with Clara. Her first trip was at four months; for the second, eight. Our flight left out of DCA and had one lay over in Seattle. Julie and Colter were kind enough to drive us to the airport. Parking at National is a mess and I didn’t want to pay for parking. We had fun talking with them on the drive and will definitely miss seeing them over Thanksgiving.

Our five-and-a-half-hour flight to Seattle took off around 5pm. We flew on Alaskan Airlines - more on them later. We shared our row with a very nice lady who was really understanding of our flying with a child. We took the aisle and center, giving her the window. Clara went to sleep early in the flight and slept peacefully in Kristin’s arms. Unfortunately, our row mate needed to get up, and in the process Clara woke up. She wouldn’t go back to sleep for the rest of the flight. I can’t really hate on our row mate as she was very kind and understanding otherwise.

Our flight arrived in Seattle at 8:30p west-coast time. That would be 11:30p our time. When Clara has a lot happening around her – people to see, noise, new environments – she can stay awake like a champ. She was so tired of being cooped up in an airline seat, that I let her crawl around on the airport floor. I figure the new germs will strengthen her immune system. She explored all the people around her, the waiting area, and the main hallway. It was so cute to see her crawl around with all these cranky air travel people all around her.

Our flight from Seattle to Portland took off around 10:30p. Clara enjoyed the plane, a propeller that seated 25-ish people. Our flight attendant was a complete riot. He probably does the route five times a day. When your job gets that routine, you gotta find ways to make it fun.

We stumbled off the plane at 11:30p, 2:30a East Coast time. Somehow we made it to Kristin’s mom’s house and into bed. It was a crazy trip, but I’m glad that we’re here and get to spend some time with Kristin’s family.