Travel Diary

I was going back! Back to New York. Back to upstate New York. You see, I'd missed attending the party in 2024. Flights were just too expensive. And the other California people weren't going so it just wasn't feasible to attend. But this year I had managed to help convince the other two Californians to head back once again, and I guess I was going either way, but I had spoken with Erica to use a companion pass to help reduce the cost of the flight. It just meant I had to fly out to San Francisco and meet her there and then we both flew across to New York. And overall, it worked great.

My flat out was in the evening, so I had a normal day. To prepare. At some point I headed out the door and walked to the Capitol Hill train station. I figured I would save some money and as well the roads were very congested due to construction. The train ride was uneventful and I soon reached SeaTac airport. After about an hour of riding the train, I arrived with extra time and I headed up to the roof and walked around some, enjoying the nice weather that was still comfortable with t-shirts.

I also noticed that it wasn't very crowded at all, with not that many cars coming and going, at least not compared to usual. Then it was time to head down to security. I had the new "touchless security" clearance. However, when I got there, I noticed that there was hardly any line again, and they said that touchless was closed. Now obviously I had still brought my ID, but I can imagine if anyone thought they were not going to need an ID, they would be sadly mistaken and in quite a dilemma. But most people still need the ID to get back anyway, so we're not at that point yet. So the wait was only about five minutes and then I headed to my gate.

I had been upgraded to first class for the first flight, so I got to board early and had a nice seat. We took off on time and I got a meal which was eggplant and basil on pita, and actually turned out to be a really good meal. Like usual, I passed on the free booze drink and just got a Diet Coke, and soon we were landing in San Francisco.

After getting off the plane, I killed a little time at a table, but my friend Erica pinged me as she was already there having a drink. I joined her at a bar, although I didn't order anything. The waitress seemed to want to say it was for customers only, but she observed I was hanging out there with Erica. It was just a strange thing to occur when they were closing in 10 minutes.

And soon enough, it was time to board the second flight.

For this flight, I was hoping both of us would be upgraded to first class. However, when the time came, there was only one seat left (that sold an hour earlier) and they gave it to me. I offered it to my friend, but she declined and I wasn't going to argue that much. So we were split up. I figured she'd at least have the entire row to herself, except somebody else had bought the middle seat. It was a pretty full flight.

That person obviously moved to the aisle seat and left the middle. But then some little boy had come up and taken the middle seat, which was a little odd, but maybe it had more legroom and nobody stopped him. Plus, it's hard to tell someone you can't do that when no one is technically sitting there. Or at least it was the lady's seat so hers to control. It was just a unfortunate situation.

Next Entry