In an attempt to not make this post to biographical, I'm going to take my time writing it, and also, it seems a crying shame to write this while sober. The only sobering thing about our trip to Kentucky was the hospitality of our host Cody Rossen and Makers Mark. What better way for a bunch of bartenders to begin a trip to Kentucky, than to pull and "All Nighter". Since our flight left Portland at 6:30am on Sunday morning and a hand full of us had to work the night before, there seemed no need to go to bed and get 90 minutes of sleep before waking up and climbing into a cab...etc...BORING!!! So we gather at Teardrop Lounge after they closed down. For bartenders, it's much easier to pass the time in a bar than it is fiddling our thumbs at home. By 4:30am, myself, Evan Zimmerman(Laurelhurst Market), Elizabeth Markham(Beaker and Flask), Tommy Klus(Bluehour), and David Shenaut(Teardrop Lounge), (Alison Webber*Gilt* and Chris Churilla *Downward Dog* were traveling separately) were properly lubed and hitched a ride to the Airport.
I don't know if any of you have ever caught a flight first thing in the morning after staying up all night, but let me tell you....thanks to a rather generous glass of Drambue, and some delicious brownies, I recall... boarding, taxi'ing (not sure if that's a word or not)...and then the ding of the "fasten seat belt sound" and the pilot saying, "We are beginning our decent into Minneapolis". A 4 1/2 hour flight that felt like 30 minutes. It's the only way to fly.
We had a brief layover in Minneapolis, perfectly scheduled to coincide with the Viking's v. Rams game. I managed to catch the first quarter and a half before we boarded our plane to Louisville. I think I had luck on my side all week long because as I'm boarding the plane I muddle my way to my seat, and who was seated next to me? Yes...it's a 23 year old model on her way back from Calgary to Louisville. I showed her pictures of my wife (who's way hotter than she was) and kids, we talked life and careers, swapped I pods for a bit....the only reason why this piece of information is important is because, when we got off the airplane, everyone else proclaimed they had an awful experience on that flight. Once I piped in that I sat next to a 23 year old model, I lost whatever friends I had before we left Portland.
Lesson: Keep that kind of information to myself.
Stay Tuned for the next Installment...
