he last time I traveled to umpire, I flew right into a hurricane. I landed two states west of my intended destination, drove overnight in a rental car with two people I had never met, and then got rained out of two days of games. One of these days I'll have to tell this story for all the Officiating.com baseball readers.

I knew, somehow, that my trip to the great Northwest would start out a little better. Mainly, of course, because beer drinking was on the agenda for the first day.

I left Milwaukee on schedule, made an out-of-the-way connection in Houston (the airlines love to give out the frequent flyer points, but make you jump through hoops to use them), and arrived in Seattle on time. Things were going too well.

Continued...