What a perfect send off. The morning was very crisp when I woke up – 37 degrees. I should have known, the weekend before Christmas, security check at the airport would be a nightmare. People had been in line for over an hour waiting to clear. Thank goodness for the Medallion miles!! That special program let me cut not only those that had a flight earlier than mine but also go right to the security guy checking tickets and IDs. No waiting for me :) Today’s ticket got me into the Crown room. Pull up a chair, face the planes all lined up, ready for the day’s activities, and watch the sunrise and fill the club room. It was so cool, as the sun came up over East County it got so bright that the club had to lower the shades. Now, they didn’t lower the shades all the way to the bottom, they left a 5 foot section so everyone could keep looking out onto the tarmac. Boarding was as usual. Several overhead announcements about Christmas packages filling up the oversold flight. Because the flight was so full and the plane so heavy, we did something I don’t remember doing in a long time – that being having to taxi to the very end of the runway before takeoff. Without a cloud in the sky the plane breezed down the runway. Whenever I fly I look at the cruise ship terminal to help me determine if it’s going to be an amazing trip, an ok trip, or a bummer of a trip. As luck would have it, there as we are zipping down the concrete path, a Celebrity cruise ship. It’s going to be a good trip. Pilot pulls up on the stick and up we go. Typically, when you are going to Atlanta (which is where the connection was for Buenos Aires), you spin to the north before going east. Not today. He spun to the south. It was so clear and the ocean so calm I witnessed a land shelf in the ocean off of Point Loma. It’s so pronounced that the water goes from light blue, to white where the surf is, a dark royal blue. Turn more, now south west facing and there’s downtown SD. Beautiful. Plane rolls a little more level and up pops all the snow capped mountains. Big Bear, Laguna, Alpine; there’s so much snow everywhere. Pilot just came on, there is a 149 mph wind pushing us to Atlanta. Now we’re due in almost 40 minutes early. This is a fantastic start to the trip. Now if the guy next to me will just stop coughing on me. Thank goodness I did an Airborne before starting off this morning.
A quick plug for American Express. I have a Delta credit card with Amex and thanks to 5 years of purchases (my car, cell phone, etc etc) I was able to earn enough to get my entire flight free!! Yes, free. Ok, I paid $23 for Fed security blah blah blah. But I'm ok with that :)
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