The morning came too early and after picking up a few passengers we headed to the Pittsburgh airport. Things went fine during the first leg of the trip and I had high hopes I would only be slightly late for orientation.
One should never make that kind of assumption, especially when they are on a tight schedule. One of the benefits of my flight was I did not need to change planes in Las Vegas. As soon as the first group deplaned and the new riders were loaded, the pilot stated we would be delayed as the tower could hear everything in the cockpit, but ground control could not hear the plane. After several updates, mechanics, calls to the head engineer in Dallas we had now been stuck in the plane two hours. The pilot notified the passengers he could not legally be hold us on the plane and if people wanted to deboard to get a snack/lunch they could do so. The downfall would be that if the flight was ready to leave they wouldn't wait for the missing passengers. Since I brought no snacks or lunch I decided to make a run for it (after I got a couple hundred feet away from the door I realized it would have been a good idea to take my hydration pack and helmet instead of just my wallet and phone). Thankfully the pilot also decided to make a run for it and was a couple of lines away aka as long as he was here I would not be left behind.
Long story short I arrived back in plenty of time with drinks and snacks in hand. At that time we were told that would be getting off and a new plane would be coming to take us the rest of the way. Because Southwest is great, we were each comped $100 voucher for our trouble. By this time, I was WAY late and just thankful I would be making it to Portland (fingers crossed my bag would arrive with me). I also decided it would be a "treat yo self" flight and purchased some wifi and a movie; big spender I know.
Thankfully when we touched down my bag had arrived and there was an Uber just around the corner to take me to the church. I might have showed up to orientation five hours late, but there was some great chalking outside the front door. I snuck into the basement where the chore groups were busy acting out the safety skits aka making the rules and regs more fun.
After dinner and a few more powerpoints a bunch of us headed outside to put together our bikes and make some final tweaks in preparation for tomorrow's shake down ride. I desperately tried to learn names, but after five I was tapped out (seriously I am the worst at learning new names). A little before 2300 people started rolling out thermarests and sleeping bags because tomorrow would be a big day.
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