Wednesday February 27th - Wednesday March 4th - Oregon family visit

My step-mother started struggling with Alzheimer's disease a few years ago.  For a while it was gradual and manageable but at the end of 2025 it had progressed to a pretty debilitating state.  When my father told me in January about the latest developments, it seemed clear her time was nearing an end.  We booked a trip to visit as soon as was practical for us since we couldn't know with ANY precision how much longer she would live but also that, ultimately, if our visit landed before she passed we'd get to say goodbye and if it landed after her passing we could probably help my dad with the immense task of getting the house in order after being focused on the many aspects of caring for my step-mother for so long. We already had a train trip planned to go to Chicago and Madison (WI) in March so we mushed the 2 trips together.

As it turned out our visit was too late to visit Judee who passed quietly at home on February 12th, 2026.  There wasn't any formal funeral service or celebration of life.  The time with my Dad was great both because we could help out and also just to spend time with him as he goes through this life transition.  After 3 nights in Eugene (which was really just 2 days), we headed to Central Oregon to visit my mother and step-father.  Our visit there was just 2 days also and went by pretty quickly.  Overall the whole trip to Oregon went well but it was JUST a quicky family trip with no time to visit favorite places or friends or anything else.

On Wednesday Marh 4th we took our flights to Seattle and then Chicago.  We were in first class which was very nice and enjoyed a satisfying dinner while flying between Seattle and Chicago.  It was my first time on an A220 aircraft which some people say is one of the most comfortable narrow body jets ever.  Our flight was completely fine, mostly highlighted by the super flight attendants and that the flight was on-time and not a full load of passengers.  

The aircraft didn't, in any way, stand out to me.  In coach it has a 2-3 seating arrangement like the old MD-80's which is handy if you are flying as a couple if you can be on the 2 seat side and not have anybody in a middle seat. In First they somehow put 2-2 seats, just like they would in a 737 or almost any other narrow body airliner.  I'm not sure if these seats were a little narrower than other first class seats or they just made the aisle narrower or what but if there wasn't room for 3-3 in coach but there was room for 2-2 in first, something must explain that discrepancy.  The other interesting thing about the A220 is that it's one of the first aircraft to use a new 'geared turbo fan' engine.  Instead of having the fan and all the compressor blades turning the same speed on a common shaft, the gear system allows different stages of the engine to operate at different speeds, improving efficiey and noise.  Whatever noise improvements they may have achieved I'm pretty certain they used to lighten the amount of sound insulation on the airframe because I truly didn't find it to be a particularly hushed cabin at all.  This all sounds like damning with faint praise but really the aircraft was truly fine, our seats were good and the flight overall was nice.  I just expected to have more interesting experiences from a new aircraft type that seems to be getting a lot of buzz in aviation circles.

Our rental car in Oregon was an Audi A5 which was very impressive in its quietness, power and efficiency.  The controls were complicated to figure out but a very nice vehicle overall.

I'm posting just 2 photos from this part of our trip. One is from a coffee/bagel shop in Springfield which was very inviting with a super engaging woman who helped us order.  The other was from Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie River between Eugene and Bend.  Oregon has almost no snow pack this winter but it has been wet so the river and falls were POUNDING which made for really impressive and enjoyable little leg stretcher of a walk just before getting into Sisters near the end of our beautiful easy drive from Eugene.