Thursday, September 14, 2023

9/13 Fly Away!

 Our trip to New Zealand at 1pm today, with an abundance of caution, when Sandy and her friend Melissa (who is also her house and dog sitter) picked me up at 1pm for our 4:40 flight to LAX. Security was a breeze and we had lots of time, so took advantage of Sandy's membership in the Amex Centurion club and had a pleasant wait with free food. The flight to Los Angeles was uneventful (the best kind)  but then we had to find the International Terminal, another Amex club and our gate,

The easy way to do this is to leave the secure area and take a shuttle bus. Since I now need special screening because of my replacement knee and the special machine is sometimes not easily accessible in the TSA Pre line, we opted to walk. We were at the opposite end of the terminal complex and it takes an actual 30 minutes to make the trip. This was complicated by my new extra light carryon (designed to carry stuff and stay under the NZ strict rule of a 15 lb max) that I had just gotten without realizing it had neither a shoulder strap or any place to attach one and no padded handle attachment for the straps. Ugly, but we got it done and Sandy signed me up for a chair massage to make up for my pain.

It was about 9:30 pm when we boarded and after 10:15 when we left. I had not had one of my better nights' sleeps and had eaten at both clubs, so had no interest in the dinner they were going to serve (Sandy said later it was pretty good) so I dug out my airplane sleeping aids (eye mask, head support, noise-cancelling headphones), took out my hearing aids and zoned out.

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