Travel Diary

I arose at 3am. Too early!

For this trip, it was under 24 hours, so I drove to SeaTac and parked there. The price would be about half of what Uber would charge for even one direction. The roads were mostly empty and I found ample parking space on the top level. It would be my third or fourth time parking there, as most of the time, the parking fees were just too much higher than ride share and train options. I went inside an hour before my flight.

This was a mileage run, but my only one of 2023. Just needed a bump. I opted for San Diego since the price was the best for the distance, and no time zone changes to deal with. Plus, the weather would likely not affect the flight, which isn’t always true for places like Anchorage in December.

I received no upgrade heading there, but the seat was nice. The row was full, however, so a reduction in elbow room. I mainly just spent the flight taking photos. One cool aspect was that the route was way farther inland than flights to the Bay Area. I was in Nevada part of the time.

San Diego Airport was new to me. I’d never flown there before. I opted to stay inside security and just walk around and see what the place was like. They have large sofa-like chairs so I took a quick nap on one of those. Since I only slept 1.5 hours the night before (1:30am to 3am) it was easy to nap.

Then it was my flight back. I did get the upgrade for that leg, which was most welcome as it hadn’t been happening as often. I was in 3C but I asked the other passenger if I could have the window seat and he agreed. This was great since I was on the left side now and could take photos of LA, Catalina Island, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and other cool places. Most of them, I’d not seen from the air before.

I also got a nice lunch, which was welcome after a couple of days of fasting. I did try not to eat too much since my stomach wasn’t accustomed to food at the moment. It was pretty close to being a problem.

We landed a little late and they asked us to remain seated so the people with immediate connecting flights could exit first. Only about half the first class passengers actually followed those instructions. It was quite shameful, but some people are just selfish like that.