Travel Blog, parts 1, 2, 3

Travel Blog (part 1, Thursday, 3:30pm)

 

It’s Thanksgiving Day 2007. After a rough and busy start to the week, it’s finally me time until Tuesday. That’s because I’m taking my first vacation in three years, other than the occasional weekend trip to Madison or Chicago.

 

Over the last few weeks, a plan has been developing with people I don’t even know! My friend RM left the comfort of his Midwestern life to embark on a new career path two years ago. It turned out that one of the guys he went to work with, EV, has the exact same birthday (day AND age) as Rob. Since this year is the big 4-0, I thought it would be the perfect excuse to finally visit Rob and his new life in California. DV (wife of the other birthday boy), AR (third work colleague and friend), and I have been conspiring for it to be a surprise!

 

So my flight was scheduled to leave at 1:20. I got up at 8:30 thinking, oh, I have plenty of time. Next thing I knew it was noon and I hadn’t even finished packing my bags. I grabbed Dhia to give her a quick dose of fluids, sprinted a bag of trash back to the dumpster, and finally ran out the door at 12:20, well after the time I had intended to be at the airport—through security, checked in, at my gate, casually getting a little work done while I bided my time.

 

Minneapolis’ light rail RAWKS! I boarded at 12:31, and 17 minutes later was deposited at the main terminal at the airport. Plenty of time.

 

Well, it turns out that 30 minutes goes by pretty quickly when 1) you have to ride several escalators up from the subway to the concourse level, 2) you have to check in and get your boarding pass, 3) the D-ring holding the strap on your carry on bag breaks right off and you can no longer sling it over your shoulder, 4) you have to go through the security point (which mercifully didn’t have a line, though I did almost forget to put my shoes back on), and last but not least 5) your departure gate is at the exact opposite location as the light rail station.

 

But dear lord in heaven I made it! Though I was about ready to pass out from walk/running with two small but well-packed bags, I got to the gate right as the first boarding announcement was being made. So I even had time to go back to a nearby vending machine to grab a bottle of water.

 

Then the joke was on me, a little. It turned out that we were delayed about 15 minutes anyway waiting for a few people from a connecting flight. Then we had to de-ice as it had been snowing very lightly since last night.

 

In the air now, probably over Oklahoma. (I used miles rather than money, so I got the efficient Minneapolis–Houston–San Francisco route.) The pilot said we’re about 20 minutes late, but that should still give me about 75 minutes to make my connection. Must remember, if there’s wireless in the Houston airport, to connect to my home or work computer and grab a font (yay, Leopard and Apple Remote Desktop). 

 

Stay tuned…

 

(Of course, I’ll have to wait until the surprise has happened to post this, on the outside chance that RM would happen to have finished making his pie and had nothing better to do than see if I posted a few-and-far-between entry to this blog.)

 

Part 2 (6:30pm CST)

 

Back in the air, seriously wish my iBook G4 had one of those snazzy backlit keyboards.

 

Left Houston early, pilot says we’ll arrive about 15 minutes early in San Francisco. Woo hoo!

 

Had time to eat in Houston airport. Looked for Chik-Fil-A, there was none.

 

Wonder if my own headphones work in the armrest. The plug seems to be a slightly different size, but it’s good enough for one channel which is good enough for me.

 

(6:30 PST)

 

Longest. Flight. Ever.

 

 

Part 3, Friday morning

 

In spite of its being the longest. flight. ever. we landed in SFO about 20 minutes early. Got to AR’s house just before 10pm. The surprise worked. There was an awesome moment when Rob glanced up and said “oh hi” and then another awesome moment as the confusion set in. Bloody fantastic!