After the wedding reception I had planned on calling the same cab driver that took me to the plantation from Charleston and having him drive me to the airport. My plan was to go to the terminal and get a couple of hours of sleep at the departure gate, but be right there for the flight in case anything happened. I didn’t want to be in danger of oversleeping in a proper bed and missing my flight.
Aunt Maura offered a ride to the airport on the way to her hotel, which was nice and saved a bit of time and money. I get to the airport at about midnight, and there’s nobody at the check in-counter, which is to be expected. I went to the self serve check in kiosk, and it wouldn’t let me punch in my last name. That’s fine. It will allow me to insert my credit card and look up the reservation that way. Not one of the self-serve check in kiosks could read the magnetic strip on my credit card.
This was an unforeseen circumstance of my phone battery running out of juice, as I was unable to look up my confirmation number. I would have to wait until an airline employee arrived and was able to manually check me in before I could get my boarding pass and go through security to the gate.
So, there’s nothing for me to do but wait. I get as comfortable as possible, and attempt to get a little sleep, but the chairs are such that each one has an armrest and won’t easily convert to bench style seating. The ground it brick, so I’m upright in a chair. I won’t go into the length of time it took between 12:15 and 12:17 A.M. – because that seriously felt like a day and a half.
Eventually employees of the airport started filing in about 4 A.M., and at nearly 5 A.M. an airline employee was showed up at the counter. I explained the situation, and he was very helpful, getting me checked in and I was on my way through security.
I don’t remember what seat I had on the flight from Charleston to Atlanta, but I had a middle seat flying from Atlanta to Seattle. Fortunately, it was the bulkhead row, right in front by the door of the airplane, so there wasn’t a row of seats in front of me, meaning I would be able to stretch my legs out and be fairly comfortable. Sure, there was a small issue as to what to do with my carry-on bag, but that was easily resolved thanks to a very helpful flight attendant.
By putting on some mellow music on my Zune with the noise cancelling headphones, I was able to get a decent amount of sleep. I wouldn’t say I arrived in Seattle refreshed, but I wasn’t the complete waste of flesh that I expected to be. The whole family picked me up from the airport on the way to August & Déla’s cross country meet, which I was fortunately on time for. The best thing, however, was the card my daughter made and handed to me in the car on the way to the meet.
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That’s me and her on the front. Not sure why there are two houses, but it’s her card, and she made it. The inside says “dad I mist you Love Déla” – which was about as sweet a sentiment as one could possibly hope for.