I woke up after probably about an hour after I first dozed off, and… we were still on the ground. 🙃
Apparently, the snow and ice had made things a lot more complicated for taking off than what we had first been told right before I nodded off.
When we finally got up in the air, I think it was an hour and 40 minutes after we had originally been scheduled to take off, which meant that a good portion of those on board we’re going to miss their connecting flights in Seattle. 😬
I wasn’t sure if I was going to be one of them or not, but eventually, and gratefully, I found that the gate that I needed to get to after landing was only two gates down from where I would deboard, and I was going to get there just in time for boarding to start for the next plane.
So remember that burrito? That huge Mexican feast I ate before getting on the plane and was worried about?
Well, I can’t say for sure, but about halfway through the plane flight, the guy who is sitting next to me got up and went to another seat. I wondered if maybe, while dozed off, I was acting as a methane refinery. 😅
And while switching planes, I had hoped that I was going to be able to spend some good quality time in the bathroom, as needed, during my layover, but being as late as we were, I was so worried about missing the boarding call and not being able to be the first border of the last group, which might cause issues for my baggage situation, that I held off going to the bathroom until I finally just said, screw it, I really had better go.
Yes, I’m one of those people who gets embarrassed asking people sitting next to me to move so I can get up and go to the bathroom. I pretty much always get middle seats these days, as aisle seats and window seats tend to be the seats that people choose and and pay a little extra for.
At least, that’s what I think happens. I pretty much never ever ever get aisle seats or window seats, and I never pay the handful of dollars that you can choose to pay to choose your specific seat.
Anyway, gratefully, I was able to use the bathroom, and get back in time to be the first person in line for boarding group f, the last group.
🥳
And once again, gratefully, nobody hassled me at all about my huge pack.
🥳🥳
We must have had a tailwind heading east from Seattle to Kansas City, because we ended up arriving about a half hour early.
Being one of the people who tracks flight paths and makes sure there aren’t any mid-air collisions I imagine might be an interesting job. When you’ve got planes that are early and planes that are late and all sorts of flight paths that cross each other… I wonder how they do it?
I remember I think the last time I flew, I don’t remember exactly where, I saw a plane that I swear couldn’t have been more than a handful of thousand feet away from us when it crossed our path pretty much at our same altitude.
That was nutty.
I think I remember writing about it.
So remember how I talked about how Arkansas cold and Alaska cold or super different?
Well, Kansas City cold is similar to Arkansas cold. When I got off the plane and headed to the passenger pickup area, my plane having gotten in a half hour early, and my mom arriving about 45 minutes or an hour after I got there, I figured I would just go out side and sit on the bench and wait for my mom to come pick me up.
After all, I had spent an hour outdoors in alaska, without shoes even, in colder temperatures than it was in Kansas city.
So I walked outside, and I started walking down the loading area to the first pickup spot.
And by the time I got to that first pickup spot, probably just 60 seconds after I walked out of the airport into the outdoors, I was ready to be back inside.
It was probably 15°, wind blowing pretty good, and my little butt was turning into a popsicle. 🥶
So crazy. Again, I don’t know how much of it is the humidity and how much of it is the wind, but it took fewer than 60 seconds to be frozen.
My mom picked me up about 2:30ish, and we headed back down the road toward Arkansas.
I need to remember next time I’m buying plane tickets that the gas cost to drive up and back might well be comparable to the difference in ticket price.
Even in my mom’s relatively fuel efficient Nissan juke, it’s still like 80 to $100 worth of fuel, I think.
Not to mention 7 to 8 hours of driving.
I spent part of the drive home doing online errands. The company that I booked my hotel through had tried to charge me $149 membership fee that, gratefully, my credit card company had declined.
I went ahead and had that card canceled and a new one with a new number issued.
My mom still hadn’t bought her tickets for her trip to Utah and Arizona, so I got back online and managed to find her some extremely well priced tickets again. I think including baggage fees, it was about $450 to fly from Arkansas to utah, from Utah to arizona, and from Arizona back to arkansas.
🥳
We stopped off at a Burger King on the way south to grab a leisurely late lunch/early dinner, stopped off at a gas station further south to grab a few gallons of gas before filling up completely another 60 miles down the road where gas was about 50 cents a gallon cheaper.
I’m grateful for my mom for giving me the ride to the airport, driving about 8 hours each time.
I probably won’t do that again. Better to just pay a little bit more for the ticket, I think, unless the deal out of Kansas City is just crazy good. I don’t remember how big the difference was this time. I think it was clearly good enough for me to be willing to travel out of Kansas City, but I’ll probably think twice next time so it’s not that big of a burden on someone else to give me a ride just so I can get a good deal.
I think we got back sometime after dark. I don’t remember it being too late, but it was after dark, so when my mom dropped me off at the hill where Rover had been parked, I just decided to stay the night there in Rover on the hill.
And that was that. My friend Chase is now a married man, and Alaska has been checked off the list of states that I was missing in my bid to make it to all 50 some day. I think I only have a few left. I haven’t been to vermont. I haven’t been to South Carolina. And I don’t think I’ve been to Delaware?
Next time I drive through new england, I’ll just drive through all those little States to make sure that I’ve got them all. 🙃
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 