Ramblings01

Well, here I am at the Seattle-Tacoma airport.  I got my bags checked, fumbled my way through security, and blundered on out to the South terminal, where I found a nice little table and chair, right next to an outlet.  I fired up the computer and connected right away to the free Wi Fi here at the airport.  This modern world is something else.

Today went as planned and I got out of the house on time, but it wasn’t without its comedic moments.  As I was loading the car with my two bags, Christina said “oh, I thought you were going to take the bigger of the two red bags”.  I hadn’t realized that there were two red bags, and I thought it seemed awfully small as I was packing it, but I had gotten everything in, by expanding it.  It wouldn’t stand upright after that, though, and it looked like it was pregnant.  So, we went back in and I transferred the stuff from the smaller red bag to the larger red bag, which is the one I had intended to use all along.  It fit a lot better in the bigger bag.  I was still under the weight limit, so I was again good to go.

At the airport, I kissed Christina goodbye and took my bags in to the counter to check them, and Christina was right there tapping me on the shoulder.  I had driven us to the airport in my car, but with her keys, and I had put the keys in my pocket and left her at the car without keys.  Oops.  Another laugh.

I got my bags checked – the larger one was a little overweight according to their scale (it had been under weight on my scale at home), but they let it go anyway.  At the security checkpoint, it was another circus.  Take the computer out and put it in a tray.  Take my CPAP machine out and put it in a tray.  Take my jacket off and put it in a tray.  Take my watch, pen, and glasses out of my pockets and put them in a bowl.  Oops, what about my baggie of liquids?  Root around in my CPAP bag and find that, and put that in a bowl.  Take my shoes off and put them in a tray – no, not on top of the computer, sir, use still another tray for the shoes.  Talk about a three ring circus.  Then, as I got to the other side, I couldn’t figure out what I had done with my wallet.  It finally turned up in the CPAP bag, where I had put it unconsciously, I guess.  Then I had to reverse the previous process and put everything back together again.  Flying sure is different than it used to be.

So, now I am all checked in and I have two hours to kill.  When I checked in online last night, they said that the checked baggage drop-off closed two hours before flight time!  Two hours?  I don’t actually believe that, but I wasn’t about to take a chance, so we got here even earlier than I had planned.

Now it is just a matter of killing time until we board.  (Did someone say “bored”?)  I notice that the flight from London is running about 20 minutes late, so we might be late boarding and getting out of here.  I will check out the duty free shop for a bottle of booze, but I think I will wait and hope they have a duty free shop in London at arrivals, before you go through customs, so I don’t have one more thing to keep track of on the flight.   I need to know what it would cost here, though, and what is available, so I can compare it to what I find when I get to London.

But, I am finally on my way.

The flight is supposed to be about 9 hours long, non-stop from Seattle to London.  We are scheduled to get in there about noon their time (4 AM my time).  I have a car booked, and I need to drive for about 90 minutes to get to the B&B that I have booked for Wednesday night.  It is all freeway (motorway to them) driving, so it won’t be difficult, but I will need to be very careful not to doze off.  I don’t like to drive right after getting off an overnight flight, but that is how it ended up, after my 8 day volcano delay.  I thought about paying to stay in a hotel at the airport, and drive the next day, but I decided to use the booking for Wednesday night that I was already committed to paying for.  It will be a relief to finally get there, and then my trip will really have begun.  I wonder what birds I might see tomorrow afternoon when I get there.

I’ll post this as Rambling01, to practice the technique of putting it up on the website.  It is a kind of clumsy, complicated process to get this up onto the website and then put in the link on the main 2010_Britain page.  It would be good to practice.