March 19: Florida bound

From where I live, it’s convenient to get almost nowhere. The airport isn’t terribly far away, but there’s really only one airline with any real presence. That airline is famous for mostly domestic and mostly short run flights.

They can take me many places here in the States, to be fair, if not always directly to where I need to be.

(There are other airlines that fly in and out, but you never have to ask questions like “which gate” for them. For any airline other than the one with a hub here the answer to that question is: the only gate they operate.)

But if you are, in fact, flying somewhere directly served by that airline, it’s great. Like I said, mostly domestic but if you’re planning to sail away, that can work.

And in this case, we were planning to sail away from a port served by that airline.

I’m out of practice with flying. All my muscles have atrophied. I’m not quite as put together on arrival at the airport. It takes me a second or two to get my groove at TSA.

And while I don’t mind wearing a mask – for the love of Mike, who are these people who still don’t know how to wear a mask 2 years into this mess? – I was unprepared for getting all the way to the last gate at the far end, only to have my gate change less than 5 minutes later, to the other end of the airport … and to make that scramble in my mask.

I’d forgotten that last minute gate changes are a thing. I’d forgotten how overheated one feels when making an adrenaline-fueled run across an airport.

It’s fine, it’s just … hot.

All things considered though, it was a great day to fly.

In other news, I need to work on my upper body strength. Overhead bins are no friend to the short.

At long last I made it to Florida, and then over to another terminal to meet S whose flight was landing after mine.

Luggage sorted, hotel shuttle sorted, meal sorted. Bed sorted.

Tomorrow we sail!