It is 30th of December 2025. I am in Phoenix, Arizona, happily exhausted from five days soaking in the red rocks and canyons. My return flight to Eugene, Oregon through San Diego and Sacramento boards in half an hour. And I am on Booking.com browsing flights for the following day, to Seattle, to celebrate New Years 2026. That might have been the first time I booked a flight while I could already check into it. I was waiting until the end of my AZ trip to see how much more travel and socializing I could hold and turned out – I wanted more!
I arrived in Eugene midnight that night and slept at a highway Motel with the courage and nonchalance of a man in the curvaceous body of a woman. To be honest, I’d registered the place a hotel when I booked the night as I sat in the San Diego-Sacramento leg. Oregon was cold and foggy, and I did panic when I realized that I will be staying at an American Motel all by myself for the first time. For a split second I wondered if I should climb back into the Uber and ask the driver to drop me elsewhere, but he had been angry ever since an idiotic driver almost side-rammed into us in the fog. I decided to knock at the Motel and go through with my stay. ‘I feel a bit scared’, I opened up candidly to the Motel manager, to which he replied with a smile, ‘My wife and two daughters are sleeping in the next room, you don’t have to be scared of anything’. He then talked to me throughout the process of checking in and showing me to my room, about how his place is clean and safe and he takes special care because he has two daughters himself, and I kept with the motions responding with ‘okays’ like a child learning to bike realizing slowly that she is not going to be killed by it.
The night went by, and around eleven the next day I went back into Eugene airport, which, by this point was becoming a second home to me. I was unable to do a web-check-in and did it at the counter. On Paper, I had a short trip in front of me : Eugene – Portland – Seattle, 1 PM to 3.45 PM. Something already felt fishy to me when my boarding pass said, board at Portland at 5.44 PM. ‘Its a printing error’, the Alaska Airlines staff convinced me. They tried re-printing me the pass which stubbornly maintained, board from Portland at 5.44 PM. ‘Well, this is wrong’, he said at my boarding at Eugene, ‘make sure you are at Gate C4 at 2.17 PM to catch your Portland-Seattle connection’. Okay, I agreed once again and hopped on happily into my Eugene-Portland flight and promptly fell asleep.
Nope. My Portland-Seattle connection was the one flight that was forgotten by god in ever so many ways as I would soon figure out.
At first, the TV screens broke the news to me. Alaska 3050 will fly at 6.58 PM instead of 2.42 PM. More than 4 hours later. It is 31st December and I wanted to be at Seattle to watch the New Years fireworks with friends. At the same time, the exhaustion from being on the road for 5 days and not having showered in 2 and not having slept in my own bed for a week was creeping in on me. When a San Francisco flight left from C4, I went up to the staff and asked if they could put me on a different flight to SEA. There were three more that would fly perfectly on time before mine and one at 8.30. But none had seats except for that last one.
I sat, at the gate, trying to decide what I want. ‘Do you want to stay in Portland and do something here for New Years? Maybe watch its fireworks instead of Seattle’s? Maybe check out the Avatar movie?’, ‘Nope,’ came back the reply from the singularity situated somewhere inside me. ‘If I am going to be alone, I’d rather be alone at home in Corvallis tonight.’ ‘Fair, shall we look at the airport shuttles from Portland to back home in Corvallis then?’. To be back home, hopping into a hot shower, pouring myself a cozy glass of wine and watching a movie snuggled in bed. That idea was enticing. Shuttles were ready to take me home, but something in me resisted further. She really wanted to go to Seattle. The stupid undying spirit, thirsty for life. But I was not willing to wait in this state – drooped and exhausted from my previous travel unable to even imagine trapped in PDX for three more hours.
Off to Stumptown coffee we marched. Jeff had introduced me to the coffee spot in PDX right across a miniature Powell’s book store. I got myself a cold brew with caramel flavour, went across to the Powell’s and picked up a cheesy rom-com. The cold-brew did the trick. In three sips I was invigorated and ready to get lost in the book while I waited for 7 PM, enjoying a cozy recliner that faced the runway.
Hours passed. Around 6, I left my comfy-recliner and headed towards C4 where Alaska 3050 was supposed to board in half an hour. It was a quiet crowd – a bunch of weary waiters like me and air-staff and crew going home to Seattle. And no indication of boarding.
Huh. What is it now?
Alleys 