A space to post my thoughts and musings about anything. This includes but is not limited to community, politics, current events, relationships, LGBTQ+ issues, favorite things, and stuff that would make your dead relatives blush. I am not afraid to go there, as some can attest.

December 22, 2008

Flying To See the 'Rents

*waves from Phoenix, AZ*

This morning I got out of the very chilly Baltimore weather and I headed for Phoenix, AZ to see my parents and brothers for the holidays.

Since my flight left at 6:55 this morning, I had a debate on how I was going to get up there.  MARC train and Metro don't run early enough to get there on time, I was not going to pay for a week of parking, and I really didn't want to make someone drive me up there that early in the morning.  I was considering the possibility of getting up near BWI the night before and staying at a nearby hotel (as suggested by a friend) but I still wasn't set on it.  I then looked up the price of taking the Supershuttle, and even though it wasn't the most ideal, it's what I decided to run with.

4:10 this morning I was awake and getting dressed because the shuttle was going to arrive between 4:25 and 4:40.  I was packed and out waiting by the door by 4:27, and I waited....and I waited...and I waited.  At about 4:45 I got an automated message from Supershuttle that my van was outside.  What van? I didn't see a van there.  I even ventured out in the cold and wind just to make sure the van wasn't parked at a wrong building.  So I start calling, and while I'm on hold, the van shows up...finally.  We start making our way to the airport and right as we get on the parkway, dispatch calls him.  The reason why he was late for me was because he had been waiting on a person who was a no-show, well now she was showing and she wanted her van, so we had to go back and get her.  The best part was by the time we finally got back, we could see her bags waiting by the door, and she's not by them...had to wait about 2 minutes for her to come down.  Thanks to waiting and then going back for her, I was half an hour later than I expected to be.

I get to BWI and since it is early in the morning, it's busy and the lines to check in are long.  As I was getting into the line for Southwest, one of their staff mentioned that it would be faster to go to the skycap outside instead of standing in line.  Since I was already dressed for it, I had no problem just heading out and standing in the skycap line to check my bags and get my passes.  Five minutes later,  I was on my way to security.  Got through security without a problem, grabbed a bowl of oatmeal from one of the local places, and got to my gate in enough time.

The first flight went fine, we were out on time and all that jazz.  I had taken the liberty of ripping a few movies to my laptop so I would have something to do on the flight.  I was able to watch the 40 Year Old Virgin, and a good part of The Simpsons Movie before arriving in Houston.

My concern with my connection in Houston was that we were arriving at 9:35 and my flight from Houston to Phoenix left at 10:00, so a 25 minute layover was definitely cutting it close for comfort.  However, when I fired up my cell phone upon landing, I was greeted with a text message that my flight was now leaving at 10:15, so I got a small reprieve on flying there.  Actually I could have made it if there wasn't the delay, I would have just been running down the hall to get to the gate. with only 15 minutes to spare before that flight would have left.

The second flight I finished watching the Simpsons and watched most of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation before the first battery croaked on me; that's why I have a spare.  We then landed in Phoenix, where I met up with my parents, picked up the bags, and was on my way to their home.

I am just glad that despite the fact that it's the holidays, travel was fairly smooth today, unless you were going to Portland, Oregon.  The flight crew was warning us on the Phoenix flight that if people were making a connection to go to Portland that the airport was basically closed to any air traffic, so it was your choice whether to stay in Phoenix and work to book another flight there, or still make your connecting flight, get to Salt Lake City, and hope Portland would open back up.  Good thing I wasn't flying there then.

So now it's time for the holidays here with the folks, it should be a blast :-D

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