Summary: DFW Centurion Lounge, Portlandia, Boeing Tour

When I first booked it, it was a simple BOS-DFW-PDX-LAX-BOS flight. I would be leaving Saturday morning and taking the Monday night redeye back to Boston. I was planning on meeting a friend down in Portland and then driving back to Seattle Sunday night and then do something in Seattle Monday morning before my 5:45pm flight out of PDX. It was anything but simple.

Some future posts relating to this trip:

• DFW Centurion Lounge Review
• Flyby of Mount Hood and Gardens of Portlandia
• Food of Portland: Le Pigeon, Burnside Brewery, Voodoo Donuts Too, Food Trucks
• Future of Flight Boeing Tour in Everett, WA

Here is a quick summary:

Saturday:

• Made it to BOS a few minutes before they started boarding. Good timing but not enough time to relax at the lounge
• Got to DFW on time. AA app wouldn’t update and because the change in time zones, it said my next flight would leave an hour before than it should. Mini-panic ensued. Checked the airport displays to confirm that the flight was not leaving an hour early.
• I wanted to check out the Centurion Lounge. I didn’t know it opened Tuesday and ended up getting a free gift bag! The bag was pretty amazing. I also had a quick massage and grabbed some food before my flight. Details in another post.
• We flew very close to Mt. Hood on our way into PDX. Many great pictures of Mt Hood and a few other mountains in the distance.
• Got to PDX. Made a reservation with Avis and asked for a Prius instead. The attendant upgraded me without any additional fees! Ended up driving about 490 miles on 11 gallons of gas. Not the 60mpg I got last month but still pretty good. The whole rental was $55 for two days.
• Our first stop was the Lan Su Chinese Garden. We also had some tea there until they closed about 5pm.
• We tried to get a table at Le Pigeon. There was a 90 minute wait so we went to Burnside Brewery. I ended up ordering a flight of all 11 of their beers for $11. Each were 4oz servings so 44oz for $11. They also had happy hour specials, 20oz for $4 so dollar per ounce, the flight was not a great deal. I also had their schnitzel club sandwich.
• By the time we got to Le Pigeon, we were drunk and a bit full from the food we ordered at the brewery. We ordered a few appetizers and one entree and water. We sobered up for the short drive back to Sheraton Portland Airport hotel.

Sunday:

• We went to the Voodoo Donuts Too (much shorter line), Arboretum, the Rose Garden and got a tour of the Japanese Garden.
• We checked out the food trucks in Downtown Portland. After getting completely full, we drove back to Seattle from there.
• We got back to Seattle around 7:30pm and the only thing open near Redmond was Din Tai Fung. It was very good and only had a short wait late on a Sunday night.

Monday:

• I woke up early (or late East Coast time) to get to the Future of Flight at the Boeing facility up in Everett, WA. I got there at 8:30am and got tickets for 9am. I got a few gifts, took the amazing tour, saw a 747-8 being built for Lufthansa among other planes, and then drove back to Redmond.
• I met up with my friend in Redmond for a quick lunch and then drove back to PDX for my flight. Coffee worked for the drive up to Seattle but not down to Portland. Had to take a short 20 minute nap but still made it back to the Avis with plenty of time.
• I was flying Alaska, so I checked out the Alaska Boardroom in both PDX and LAX. PDX Boardroom lounge was very small but the one at LAX was a bit bigger with a full bar and mini gift shop. Took the shuttle next to gate 65A to T4 for my AA flight.
• Redeye flight uneventful. Managed to sleep most of the flight but still pretty tired in the morning. Spent some time in the Admirals lounge for hot chocolate and some croissants before heading to work.