bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2024-08-09 11:59 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2024-08-09 11:59 pm
Reunion Trip, Day 2 of 6
FRIDAY
I woke up about 4:15 to use the bathroom and slept fitfully until my alarm went off at five. We quickly dressed and repacked, and I called for a Lyft about 5:30. It took a while for the service to find us a car and for the driver to finish his previous ride. We arrived at Everett Station at five after six and caught the 510 ten minutes later, exiting at Westlake Center and crossing the street as the mall hadn't opened yet. We shared the two elevator rides with another couple who had boarded the bus with us in Everett. As they headed for the rear of the train, we headed forward, and were underway by seven.
We arrived at Sea-Tac and were directed to the bridge level for bag drop, which was new. From there we headed upstairs to the security checkpoint level, used the bathroom, and proceeded to checkpoint 2 at the other end of the terminal. A nice-looking black dude behind us in the security line wore a T-shirt with a silhouette of a fish emblazoned with "Have a crappie weekend!" We ended up going through the magnetometer and got our belongings back fairly quickly. I lost sight of Gary as I was getting recombobulated and texted him. As it happened, he was waiting behind a column for me to finish. We made a beeline for the gate to explain our seat situation, and the agent moved us to an aisle and window in the tail of the aircraft, blocking the middle seat between us. That settled, we had steak and scrambled egg sandwiches at Le Grand Comptoir, a wine bar in the concourse, and Gary finally got my text and we had some fun with it. We returned to the gate area in plenty of time to board. As it happened, our seat belts were just long enough not to need extenders.
We were airborne and reached cruising altitude by 10:30. Gary napped as soon as we left the gate. I was sleepy but couldn't actually fall asleep with all the activity in the aisle. Soon enough, the service carts passed by and delivered our pre-ordered fruit and cheese trays, along with pretzels, Biscoff cookies, and ginger ale. During lunch, I watched an episode of The Big Brunch, produced and hosted by Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek. Afterwards, I noted our position over central South Dakota, switched to my music player and cued up Naked Man, then kicked back and tried once again to sleep, but was thwarted by the restroom queue extending past my seat until the fasten seat belt light came on early, about 40 minutes before our scheduled arrival. The need for this soon became clear as the aircraft bounced and rattled its way from the outskirts of Chicago to Cincinnati.
Once we landed, we stopped by the restroom, where I saw the cute cub father of two who sat in front of us on the plane and noticed he looked a lot like Zach. We made our way to baggage claim and soon had bags in hand. From there we navigated around several family groups to the Hertz counter. Since I'd made the reservation online, it went pretty smoothly and we were in a car within a few minutes. Gary noticed before I did that our car was issued Michigan license plates. A lady overheard him telling me about it and asked if we were from Michigan. I replied, possibly a little more forcefully than necessary, "NO." At the exit, we had to wait for a driver who took the wrong vehicle to return it whence it came so they could take the correct one. Once the errant vehicle was out of the way, we checked out quickly and were on the road to the hotel. I noticed the car had not been refueled, so we stopped at Speedway on Buttermilk Pike; the car has an impressive range of nearly 600 miles on a tank of gas.
We got checked in to the hotel about ten minutes to seven. We stretched out on the beds (appropriately enough, two queens) and I chatted with Sheila briefly before suggesting Ruby Tuesday for dinner. Gary liked that idea very much. We drove the ridiculously short distance because we wanted to use the car afterwards for grocery shopping. There were many bears dining there tonight.🐻 We had the endless garden bar and strawberry lemonade. Our waitress served us two drinks each and a third in a to-go cup.
After dinner I hopped on the freeway to Kroger on Kemper. An omen of what was to come: a group of five or six people sauntered in front of the car well forward of the stop sign where they were supposed to cross. I managed to park the car in a spot where a cart corral had been knocked askew and partially blocked the space. On our way into the store we saw several police cars and mobs of mostly teenagers streaming from the exit. We managed to find what we needed and check out, only to find the exit locked (with a cute cubby black dude holding the door closed) since more teenagers were swarming outside, waiting for us to exit so they could sneak in. An older clerk suggested the cops "pepper spray them all" if that happened. Eventually the huge ginger bear officer indicated the coast was clear, and the cubby clerk unlocked the door and let us out. Gary later marveled at the fact no one bothered us in the store, and we chalked it up to us being either too big or too old (or both) to fuck with. The cops were trying to herd the crowd and their vehicles away from Winton Road and out the Kemper Road exit, so we did the opposite, exiting onto Winton and making the left onto Kemper since we couldn't return to the freeway that way.
I made the right turn onto Route 4 and the left onto Sharon Road as I'd done taking Dad to church. About halfway between downtown Glendale and the hotel, an SUV parked halfway into the traffic lane to wait for some people across the street, forcing me to stop while they figured out what to do. This pissed off a driver following me so closely I could not see their headlights in my rear-view mirror. As I passed Princeton High School, a lane opened up and the tailgater couldn't wait for me to move right as I was intending to do anyway, swooping into the lane to my right and matching my speed. I slowed to a stop and let the asshole go around, then made my lane change and stayed some distance back to make clear I was not going to engage.
We returned to the room with our purchases, and I stripped down, put on my gym shorts, slurped down the strawberry lemonade and consumed the ice with a bottle of Snapple tea. I finished my journaling around eleven and prepared for bed, turning in just before midnight.
I woke up about 4:15 to use the bathroom and slept fitfully until my alarm went off at five. We quickly dressed and repacked, and I called for a Lyft about 5:30. It took a while for the service to find us a car and for the driver to finish his previous ride. We arrived at Everett Station at five after six and caught the 510 ten minutes later, exiting at Westlake Center and crossing the street as the mall hadn't opened yet. We shared the two elevator rides with another couple who had boarded the bus with us in Everett. As they headed for the rear of the train, we headed forward, and were underway by seven.
We arrived at Sea-Tac and were directed to the bridge level for bag drop, which was new. From there we headed upstairs to the security checkpoint level, used the bathroom, and proceeded to checkpoint 2 at the other end of the terminal. A nice-looking black dude behind us in the security line wore a T-shirt with a silhouette of a fish emblazoned with "Have a crappie weekend!" We ended up going through the magnetometer and got our belongings back fairly quickly. I lost sight of Gary as I was getting recombobulated and texted him. As it happened, he was waiting behind a column for me to finish. We made a beeline for the gate to explain our seat situation, and the agent moved us to an aisle and window in the tail of the aircraft, blocking the middle seat between us. That settled, we had steak and scrambled egg sandwiches at Le Grand Comptoir, a wine bar in the concourse, and Gary finally got my text and we had some fun with it. We returned to the gate area in plenty of time to board. As it happened, our seat belts were just long enough not to need extenders.
We were airborne and reached cruising altitude by 10:30. Gary napped as soon as we left the gate. I was sleepy but couldn't actually fall asleep with all the activity in the aisle. Soon enough, the service carts passed by and delivered our pre-ordered fruit and cheese trays, along with pretzels, Biscoff cookies, and ginger ale. During lunch, I watched an episode of The Big Brunch, produced and hosted by Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek. Afterwards, I noted our position over central South Dakota, switched to my music player and cued up Naked Man, then kicked back and tried once again to sleep, but was thwarted by the restroom queue extending past my seat until the fasten seat belt light came on early, about 40 minutes before our scheduled arrival. The need for this soon became clear as the aircraft bounced and rattled its way from the outskirts of Chicago to Cincinnati.
Once we landed, we stopped by the restroom, where I saw the cute cub father of two who sat in front of us on the plane and noticed he looked a lot like Zach. We made our way to baggage claim and soon had bags in hand. From there we navigated around several family groups to the Hertz counter. Since I'd made the reservation online, it went pretty smoothly and we were in a car within a few minutes. Gary noticed before I did that our car was issued Michigan license plates. A lady overheard him telling me about it and asked if we were from Michigan. I replied, possibly a little more forcefully than necessary, "NO." At the exit, we had to wait for a driver who took the wrong vehicle to return it whence it came so they could take the correct one. Once the errant vehicle was out of the way, we checked out quickly and were on the road to the hotel. I noticed the car had not been refueled, so we stopped at Speedway on Buttermilk Pike; the car has an impressive range of nearly 600 miles on a tank of gas.
We got checked in to the hotel about ten minutes to seven. We stretched out on the beds (appropriately enough, two queens) and I chatted with Sheila briefly before suggesting Ruby Tuesday for dinner. Gary liked that idea very much. We drove the ridiculously short distance because we wanted to use the car afterwards for grocery shopping. There were many bears dining there tonight.🐻 We had the endless garden bar and strawberry lemonade. Our waitress served us two drinks each and a third in a to-go cup.
After dinner I hopped on the freeway to Kroger on Kemper. An omen of what was to come: a group of five or six people sauntered in front of the car well forward of the stop sign where they were supposed to cross. I managed to park the car in a spot where a cart corral had been knocked askew and partially blocked the space. On our way into the store we saw several police cars and mobs of mostly teenagers streaming from the exit. We managed to find what we needed and check out, only to find the exit locked (with a cute cubby black dude holding the door closed) since more teenagers were swarming outside, waiting for us to exit so they could sneak in. An older clerk suggested the cops "pepper spray them all" if that happened. Eventually the huge ginger bear officer indicated the coast was clear, and the cubby clerk unlocked the door and let us out. Gary later marveled at the fact no one bothered us in the store, and we chalked it up to us being either too big or too old (or both) to fuck with. The cops were trying to herd the crowd and their vehicles away from Winton Road and out the Kemper Road exit, so we did the opposite, exiting onto Winton and making the left onto Kemper since we couldn't return to the freeway that way.
I made the right turn onto Route 4 and the left onto Sharon Road as I'd done taking Dad to church. About halfway between downtown Glendale and the hotel, an SUV parked halfway into the traffic lane to wait for some people across the street, forcing me to stop while they figured out what to do. This pissed off a driver following me so closely I could not see their headlights in my rear-view mirror. As I passed Princeton High School, a lane opened up and the tailgater couldn't wait for me to move right as I was intending to do anyway, swooping into the lane to my right and matching my speed. I slowed to a stop and let the asshole go around, then made my lane change and stayed some distance back to make clear I was not going to engage.
We returned to the room with our purchases, and I stripped down, put on my gym shorts, slurped down the strawberry lemonade and consumed the ice with a bottle of Snapple tea. I finished my journaling around eleven and prepared for bed, turning in just before midnight.