Head East Young Man

Ok, in case you missed my previous post, I get to go to VA/DC for a long weekend trip for work and some play. The stuff below is some live notes I took on my Centro along the way, with some typos and such corrected of course.

Now, this is my first time in the airport since mid-2001, and first time dealing with the new security and all. We parked at Humphrey terminal, walked a looong way to get to where we catch the light rail, then another tram to the terminal.

Check in went ducky. No line or anything. Dropped the luggage off at the scanner. Dad went to get one last smoke in and we head to the checkpoint and the line was so-so. But then we got lucky and they seemed to open another line.
Then my luck got even better! My first time on a flight in over a decade and I get picked for special screening. I got to take off my shoes, put all my stuff, including my shoes (no gel inserts mind you) in the special red bins for the x-ray and then go through the metal detector. On the other side they gave me a quick pat down and then went through my backpack in detail.

It was sort of interesting having them wipe stuff down and test it for explosive residue or something. They checked the inside of my shoes, my camera, laptop, wallet, even the inside of the backpack. The whole thing took less than ten minutes and rhe screener was polite and personable. All in all it was no biggie, and we may have even saved a few minutes compared to waiting in line.

We were supposed to leave at 12:15, it was actually 12:35 when we pull back from gate. It is now 12:53 and we’ve been cruising out to the runway for over five minutes. At first they said we were going to have to wait in line, but it seems we are heading right out instead of waiting more.

12:54 we take off.

Some storms moved in about 11, it was still raining a bit when we boarded. That was the main reason for our delay. I didn’t really recognize anything on the way up, and things were a litle on the bumpy side, still is here and there actually. Now we are crusing above the clouds and all you can see is white all around.

We were cruising at about 35000 feet.

Got in basically on time, good tail wind from the storms maybe?

My connecting flight to DC left the gate on time - 6:40, but it is now 7:41 and we are still sitting on the tarmac? waiting for our turn to take off. Once we do it is only about a 20 min flight.

It is after 8 now. I got a text from my dad, whose flight was about an hour before mine and he is still on the ground in PA too.

This plane is tiny. I am anything but. This thing is maybe eight foot across. Four seats and an aisle - I was assigned a window seat. My left shoulder hit up against the side of the plane. There were extra seats and the guy that was next to me offered to move, giving me more room. If the flight had been normal, I would have been ok. It wasn’t, so I am glad he offered to move.
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Ok, it’s now just after 3am. The flight finally took off. It took less than 30 minutes to get touched down in DC. And I got there 7 minutes before my dad. Picked up luggage, shuttle ride to the car rental place to pick up a Toyota RAV4, and then it’s off to Christiansburg. With some stops for caffeine and such, it took just under 5 hours to get here.

And that’s where I’ll leave things for the moment… more to come ovedr the weekend, along with some pictures (I snapped one of the Washinton Monument with my phone on the way in for starters.)