Travel Diary

I had a thought I needed to get up around five, but I messed up since I was reading the landing time and not the take off time.I needed to be at the airport about an hour before I planned, but thankfully, I had already been awake, so when I calculated the time left before taking off, I noticed my error. It is kind of cool that Apple and the Alaska app will show you the amount of time until boarding time, so you can get an idea of where you're at and where you need to be. I texted my dad, and he was already awake and ready to go anyway, so it wasn't a problem. And then around 4:45 AM. we drove over to the airport. I know that it was 4:45 because at 4:50 AM I guess my mom had come out to say goodbye, but I'd already left five minutes before. Nothing I could do about that now.

Security was very light for TSA pre-check. I guess just a lot of people in Idaho don't have it (or maybe don’t want it) over there, and it is a smaller airport, but I imagine that'll probably change in time. In regards to an upgrade: there had been a lot of first class unsold seats, but even after the check-in the first class seats all got handed out, I was still about eighth down in the list. There was no way I was getting a first class upgrade on this flight. But again it's a very fast flight. Plus, there were some open rows, so before boarding, I just used the app to move up to an open row and left it at that.

After boarding, I got in my row, but in the meantime, somebody else had gotten into the same row. I guess he must've done the same thing and changed the seat at the last moment to get a nice row. The important thing was the middle was still unoccupied, so it really didn't matter that much. And I wasn't going to lie across all three seats anyway for a short flight.

We took off on time and were soon up in the air. I passed on the free drink since I wasn't that thirsty, and I wanted to rest a bit. I did accept the cookies and chocolate bar though. Might as well keep those for later. In short time, we landed in Seattle.

Unfortunately, since we landed early, there was no open gate to park in, so we had to wait on the tarmac for about 25 minutes. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you land early, since you're not gonna get off the plane. But around 7 AM, we finally got a gate and disembarked. I moved quickly to get to the parking lot and then paid for parking which was about $95. And then I drove home. As usual, traffic got really heavy getting close to Seattle. But finally, I was back home again and ready to go into my first day of work.