![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Christmas Trip, Day 1 of 8
Dec. 22nd, 2021 11:59 pmWEDNESDAY, December 22
We got up about twenty to four and were packed, dressed, and ready to go about five-thirty. Our Uber driver, Deborah, arrived in a red Mitsubishi wagon just before six and dropped us off at Everett Station. We boarded the 510 bus, sat up front by the exit doors because of Gary's foot and stashed our luggage under the seat. We rode all the way to Chinatown Station and caught the train there, as it was easier to navigate than Westlake. On the train I chatted over Messenger with Zach from Portsmouth and we figured we weren't going to get to meet up this trip, as he's going to West Virginia to see family for Christmas.
When we arrived at Sea-Tac Airport Station it was rather wet and Gary's boot was slipping on the pavement like an ice skate. We caught the shuttle to the terminal and proceeded to get in the First Class queue to check bags. We chatted with the dude (about our age) in front of us who noticed our Silvertips hats. He asked if we played. I mentioned the ages of the players were 16-20. Once our bags were checked in, we stopped by the restroom and Gary did a glucose test. We then got in line for checkpoint 5 and the lady directed us to the premium line, which we would have been able to use anyway but Gary's boot made it obvious. When we approached the ID desk we both noticed the cute young bear who was checking IDs, as well as the smaller cub working the baggage screening belt for the other lane. There were a lot of ladies in wheelchairs waiting in line with us to get screened. Fortunately we didn't need to pull anything out of bags so I didn't need long to get recombobulated, but Gary decided to take off his boot to be screened with the luggage and so took a while putting it back on.
Between the screening checkpoint and the train to the North Satellite we saw three dogs: a tiny Chihuahua or Min Pin who had to come out of the carrier so it could be screened, a white Shih Tzu in the lap of one of the wheelchair ladies, and a Golden Retriever wearing a working vest and harness. When we arrived at the North Satellite we located our gate and ducked into Skillet for a more substantial breakfast (I had a small muffin and a bagel and Gary the other slightly larger muffin at home). The nice biker-looking bear seated at the front of the restaurant stood up as we arrived and I thought he was checking for vaccination cards, but he was just preparing to leave and took a long look at Gary's boot as we passed. Gary had a standard two-egg breakfast and I had a bacon and cheese burrito with salad greens dressed with balsamic vinegar. When we finished our breakfast we barely had time to sit down at the gate before pre-boarding was announced, which we took advantage of due to the boot.
Our flight attendant who gave us the safety briefing was a cute young cub with dark tousled hair and just a hint of a mustache and beard under his colorful mask (which he pulled aside to demonstrate the oxygen system during the briefing). We took off to the south and climbed above a low cloud layer before reaching Mount Rainier. Once we reached cruising altitude, cubby flight attendant went to serve the main cabin and a somewhat shorter and thinner dude named Alex served us warm nuts, and later our pre-ordered meals. Gary took his time eating because the meal was more substantial than we'd thought and he was still full from Skillet. After lunch, a whole bunch of people all needed to use the bathroom beside the cockpit, including me. I watched two episodes of Home Town Takeover, in which Ben Napier (the hot red bear from the original Home Town show) and his wife Erin remodel pretty much an entire small town in Alabama (with a little help from their friends) the way they've done with their own town in Mississippi. One of the featured properties was the house where Big Fish was filmed. By the time the shows were done, we had passed Indianapolis and were beginning our descent into Cincinnati. Gary slept most of the flight after lunch. As we landed, Gary discovered he'd fallen asleep with a chocolate bar in his hand and it made quite the mess, but fortunately the two antimicrobial wipes we were given on boarding cleaned that up nicely.
We made our way through the airport to baggage claim and on to the rental car facility and picked up the car without much fuss. We drove to Erin and J's home in Indiana for dinner with Colleen, Rab, J and the three kids; Erin was delayed coming home from work at an urgent care clinic. Dinner was a nice taco bar with hard and soft shells, seasoned beef, cheese, lots of veggies and salsas, and sour cream. We chatted until almost eight, and I checked into the hotel online and estimated our arrival at 9:45 (and was off by only a few minutes).
When we got on the road, a semi-truck driver flashed the brights behind us and leaned on the horn while passing. Turns out we were driving on our parking lights. Oops. We stopped by Walgreens in Springdale for bottled water (I bought purified because distilled was sold out) and I corrected the lights before we continued on to Columbus. We arrived at the hotel shortly before ten and got settled in while watching the Kennedy Center Honors and late local news. Gary was asleep just after midnight and I stayed up till 12:30 finishing my journal.
We got up about twenty to four and were packed, dressed, and ready to go about five-thirty. Our Uber driver, Deborah, arrived in a red Mitsubishi wagon just before six and dropped us off at Everett Station. We boarded the 510 bus, sat up front by the exit doors because of Gary's foot and stashed our luggage under the seat. We rode all the way to Chinatown Station and caught the train there, as it was easier to navigate than Westlake. On the train I chatted over Messenger with Zach from Portsmouth and we figured we weren't going to get to meet up this trip, as he's going to West Virginia to see family for Christmas.
When we arrived at Sea-Tac Airport Station it was rather wet and Gary's boot was slipping on the pavement like an ice skate. We caught the shuttle to the terminal and proceeded to get in the First Class queue to check bags. We chatted with the dude (about our age) in front of us who noticed our Silvertips hats. He asked if we played. I mentioned the ages of the players were 16-20. Once our bags were checked in, we stopped by the restroom and Gary did a glucose test. We then got in line for checkpoint 5 and the lady directed us to the premium line, which we would have been able to use anyway but Gary's boot made it obvious. When we approached the ID desk we both noticed the cute young bear who was checking IDs, as well as the smaller cub working the baggage screening belt for the other lane. There were a lot of ladies in wheelchairs waiting in line with us to get screened. Fortunately we didn't need to pull anything out of bags so I didn't need long to get recombobulated, but Gary decided to take off his boot to be screened with the luggage and so took a while putting it back on.
Between the screening checkpoint and the train to the North Satellite we saw three dogs: a tiny Chihuahua or Min Pin who had to come out of the carrier so it could be screened, a white Shih Tzu in the lap of one of the wheelchair ladies, and a Golden Retriever wearing a working vest and harness. When we arrived at the North Satellite we located our gate and ducked into Skillet for a more substantial breakfast (I had a small muffin and a bagel and Gary the other slightly larger muffin at home). The nice biker-looking bear seated at the front of the restaurant stood up as we arrived and I thought he was checking for vaccination cards, but he was just preparing to leave and took a long look at Gary's boot as we passed. Gary had a standard two-egg breakfast and I had a bacon and cheese burrito with salad greens dressed with balsamic vinegar. When we finished our breakfast we barely had time to sit down at the gate before pre-boarding was announced, which we took advantage of due to the boot.
Our flight attendant who gave us the safety briefing was a cute young cub with dark tousled hair and just a hint of a mustache and beard under his colorful mask (which he pulled aside to demonstrate the oxygen system during the briefing). We took off to the south and climbed above a low cloud layer before reaching Mount Rainier. Once we reached cruising altitude, cubby flight attendant went to serve the main cabin and a somewhat shorter and thinner dude named Alex served us warm nuts, and later our pre-ordered meals. Gary took his time eating because the meal was more substantial than we'd thought and he was still full from Skillet. After lunch, a whole bunch of people all needed to use the bathroom beside the cockpit, including me. I watched two episodes of Home Town Takeover, in which Ben Napier (the hot red bear from the original Home Town show) and his wife Erin remodel pretty much an entire small town in Alabama (with a little help from their friends) the way they've done with their own town in Mississippi. One of the featured properties was the house where Big Fish was filmed. By the time the shows were done, we had passed Indianapolis and were beginning our descent into Cincinnati. Gary slept most of the flight after lunch. As we landed, Gary discovered he'd fallen asleep with a chocolate bar in his hand and it made quite the mess, but fortunately the two antimicrobial wipes we were given on boarding cleaned that up nicely.
We made our way through the airport to baggage claim and on to the rental car facility and picked up the car without much fuss. We drove to Erin and J's home in Indiana for dinner with Colleen, Rab, J and the three kids; Erin was delayed coming home from work at an urgent care clinic. Dinner was a nice taco bar with hard and soft shells, seasoned beef, cheese, lots of veggies and salsas, and sour cream. We chatted until almost eight, and I checked into the hotel online and estimated our arrival at 9:45 (and was off by only a few minutes).
When we got on the road, a semi-truck driver flashed the brights behind us and leaned on the horn while passing. Turns out we were driving on our parking lights. Oops. We stopped by Walgreens in Springdale for bottled water (I bought purified because distilled was sold out) and I corrected the lights before we continued on to Columbus. We arrived at the hotel shortly before ten and got settled in while watching the Kennedy Center Honors and late local news. Gary was asleep just after midnight and I stayed up till 12:30 finishing my journal.