Promptly at 7:30, a cab showed up at Jeri & Phil's
house, and we all went outside for the goodbyes and off to the airport. It was sad
to say goodbye, but I was ready to come home.
As we left and started to get into the rush hour traffic, I
noticed that the leaves were starting to turn a vivid color. It will be weeks before
they are at "peak" but it was nice to get this preview.
The cabbie quoted us $40 for the ride to the airport,
saying it would depend on traffic, and then he proceeded to weave in and out of back roads
and by the time we reached the airport, our bill was only $34.50.
He had a conservative radio station talk show on, and the callers
were all attacking Obama. The cabbie said something about he didn't know about
Obama. He said "I guess he might be a nice person." I said "I
think he's a nice person." He said "Well, I guess we have to
disagree..." and then he turned off the radio station.
We walked through the front door of Logan airport and a guy at the
United counter, seeing me with my cane, immediately asked if I would like a wheelchair and
when I hesitated he pointed out it was a long walk to the gate so, heck, yeah! He
stamped my boarding pass and sent me to sit down and wait for someone to help me.
A very nice lady from Ethiopia (whose name started with
"G") gathered all of our papers and IDs and rushed us through Security, pushing
everybody aside and even unpacking my computer for the screening. Then she took us
to the gate where she settled me into the disabled seat for pre-boarding. I dunno if
I was taking advantage of the system or not, but I was sure happy for her assistance and
for knowing we would get to board first.
We had 2 hours to wait because we had arrived so early, so we had
breakfast and then, just before the plane boarded, Walt took his last chance to get some
of that Boston clam chowda.
When we were all crammed into our
seats, Walt and I had aisle seats opposite each other. The woman sitting next to me
made herself comfortable and spread her stuff out all over the floor. Now I'm the
last one to criticize spreading and cluttering, but I did draw the line at her relaxing
with her right leg across her knee and resting her dirty flip flop and her bare foot on my
knee!
Naturally I took a picture and then posted it to Facebook before we
had to turn off our electronic devices.
Not one to complain, I did finally get up the nerve to ask her to
move her foot. Other people's feet kind of creep me out anyway and I did not relish having
that woman's foot in my lap for the flight.
She responded somewhat icily that she didn't realize what she was
doing and I thought she sounded like a real bitch, but fortunately, as the flight went on
(and there was no repeat of the foot-in-lap incident), I discovered she really was quite
nice, though she got up so many times! It's always a big production for me
to haul my body out of the plane seat and it seemed I had to keep doing it over and over
again.
However, I can't really complain because Walt had two guys sitting
next to him who got up continually. He may have spent more time letting them out of
their seats than he did actually sitting in his seat with his seat belt fastened.
Despite a delayed departure time, we arrived in San Francisco on
time, happy to see black clouds rolling down the hills (supposedly the first rain of the
season will hit the Bay area tonight...not sure it will move far enough to give Davis a
much needed drink, but any water is welcome!)
Walt was trying to rush home to get to a 5:30 meeting, but though we
managed to avoid as much traffic as possible, the backups were just too much and by the
time he would get to the meeting in Woodland, it would be just ending. Besides, he's
been in transit for hours and was exhausted.
2 comments:
Just a memory? It's a good thing you took pictures. 8-)
Glad you had such a good trip. We're hoping to see some fall color next week.
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