Thursday - Day One

Well, the adventure is underway. I am writing this in my suite at the Best Western Grosvenor Hotel in San Francisco. It is 1:45am per my body clock but 10:45pm local time. All has gone well so far.

I finished everything up at the apartment at 11:11am Thursday morning (and yes, there is that number again), doubled checked everything in the duffle and computer case and then went downstairs to meet the car service at 1:00pm and the car was waiting for me.

The trip to JFK went well and I was at the Delta terminal at 1:35. I usually use curbside checkin and I did so this time even though Delta has started charging $3 for the “privilege” of using that service. Had a very interesting chat with two of the Sky Caps and they said their earnings have plummeted and if people do use the service they usually don’t tip. Well, I tipped. Way to go Delta, just another example of screwing over the little guy. Anyway ...

When I got to the gate I was able to get an exit row aisle seat and that made me very happy. I had about a 2 hour wait but it went by pretty fast. I did buy a rather nasty looking sandwich to eat during the flight.

We boarded on time. The plane was about 75% capacity. When we pulled back from the gate we got into a long line of other planes waiting to take off. We finally were airborne at 5:30, 35 minutes after leaving the gate.

The flight itself went very well. I spent most of the time either working a crossword puzzle or playing solitaire on my iBook. I ate 1/2 of the nasty sandwich. We made up time and actually landed at SFO 5 minutes ahead of schedule - it was 11:30 EST or 8:30 PST.

Had a bit of a scare with my duffle. I kept waiting and waiting at the baggage claim area and no duffle ... the crowd got thinner and thinner and I began to have thoughts that The Norris Travel Curse had struck yet again. But, thank you Higher Power, the duffle did finally arrive, with the last load of baggage. Whew!!!

Still breathing sighs of relief I went outside the terminal to the Hotel Shuttle Area. It was cold and windy and, of course, my jacket was in the bottom of the duffle. No matter. I gritted my teeth and soon the shuttle arrived.

My two-room suite is excellent

My flight tomorrow departs at 1:20pm and I will be at the airport in plenty of time since the hotel is only about 5 minutes away from the International Terminal.

So, that is about it.

Billi Pod
wanjr@aol.com