Well, here's the update. You have to read this....

Our flight left RDU (Raleigh) at 6:30 AM EST headed to Houston with a scheduled arrival time of 8:30 AM CST. Our connecting flight to Portland is scheduled for departure at 9:10 AM CST with an arrival time in Portland at 11:30 AM PST. The plane lands on time and here's where the day begins to get long...

We are sitting in row 22 on a 737, 3 or 4 rows behind the wing. About 6 rows up is an older gentlemen, probably mid-late 60's, who was given assistance boarding the plane. There was an announcement made saying "anyone requiring assistance please remain seated until all other passengers have exited the aircraft". This man immediately stands up after this announcement and begins to exit the plane. He takes about 4 or 5 steps and collapses to the floor. Next thing I know there's 9 or 10 emergency crew members at the front of the plane giving this guy CPR, IV's, and everything else they can do. It was obvious to the rest of us on the plane he had just had a heart attatck. In the meantime, everyone (including Stefanie and I) on the plane behind him had to wait on the paramedics to do their job. They worked on him for 45 minutes to an hour. It didn't look good. They finally decided to remove him from the plane. At this point, he had been laying in the floor for over an hour and no signs of life. We have already missed our connecting flight.

We were told to go to the customer service center to have our flight rescheduled. The flight attendants gave every indication that this man had just passed away by the expressions on their face. It was a very sad time. We later found out this was the case. He had a massive heart attack and to compound things, he was on his honeymoon!

We rebooked but didn't have a direct flight to Portland. We were to leave at 12:05 PM CST to fly to Seattle and arrive at 2:40 PM PST and then catch a 4:00 PM flight down to Portland with an arrival of 4:50 PM. This is 5 1/2 hours later than originally planned and a 3 1/2 hour drive over to the Heceta Head Lighthouse is now out of the question.

After 16 hours of traveling (we left for the airport at 4:00 AM EST) I decided to head down the Historic Columbia River Highway, which was proposal plan B. I came up with plan B on the flight to Seattle, by the way.

So I take her to Multnomah Falls with every intention of hiking to the top of the falls and proposing there. It's already past sunset when we get there and the hike up the mountain was over a mile. Neither of us was dressed for the hike.

We decided to hike part of the trail up to have some different views of the falls for pictures. Finally, after coming back down and standing on the overlook from the lodge below, I asked her.

She did say yes and it was very romantic but completely unexpected. A wonderful ending to an unexpected day.

How's that for a story?

I'm sorry for being so long-winded but I had to get that out. What a day it was!