June 18

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Unfortunately, I woke up feeling rather icky. We got up and showered, and walked two doors up the street to the apartment building. I called our daughter to request that she come down from the apartment and bring me a club soda and bitters.

It was a beautiful day. Cool, clear, blue. Lovely.

My better half went off to move the rental car and collect the truck.

We had been parking the rental car in the street. Just north of the apartment is a VERY nice neighborhood, where it's ok to park. Sometimes.

As long as you keep track of which street is ok to park on, when, and move when required, it's a fine place to park.

I had wondered if it would be ok to park a truck the way we'd been parking a car, but apparently it was. Or at least no one complained. We did not get a ticket or wake up to find the truck had been towed......

My daughter and I noticed that the primo parking slot we'd had the night before was open, so we sat on the curb and guarded it.

I really didn't think I was going to be able to go up and down and up and down (and did I mention around and around), so I stayed down with the truck, sipping soda (and developing quite a taste for bitters).

Slowly but surely the Stuff filled the bottom of the truck.

I did venture up, once, to use the bathroom and get some more soda&bitters. And to check in with Southwest, which I had forgotten to do the day before.

The new roommate's mom was friendly and charming and wished she could do something for me. It would have been lovely, had she known magic anti-nausea tricks I didn't know, but, alas.........



At 11:00 the Stuff was all at ground level. The truck was packed. It was Time To Go.

They were concerned about me, driving and flying in my not-so-good condition.

I was concerned about them, and the truck's acceleration issues.



They drove away.

I walked up into the neighborhood to retrieve the rental car. Slowly. Sipping the last of the soda and bitters.



I had Google directions to the airport. One reason I like them is they tell you how far each leg should be.

My first leg began well. The traffic and I moved right along. Then it got sticky, a few blocks before I needed to make my first turn.

As it happened, the road I was to turn on was under construction. Not only did its four lanes (one way) become one (1), but the construction vehicles would back up and block that one (1) lane any time they wanted.

(This would be a good time to mention that my plane wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:10. We hadn't known when the truck would be full, and I hadn't wanted to leave before they did. So ... time was totally not an issue, which had to lower the stress level.)



Where were we?

Oh yes, on Lombard Street.

It took me the better part of an hour to turn onto, and to go one half (1/2) mile on Lombard Street.

(You see why I mentioned the excess of time.)



So there I was, hanging out on Lombard street, moving 10 or 20 feet every so often.

Popping Tums. Chewing Doublemint. Sipping soda&bitters.

I had my penultimate applesauce on Lombard Street..........



I was to turn off Lombard on to Greene.

When that was (at last!) accomplished, traffic was moving normally (hooray!), and it looked like all was golden.

I looked at a street sign (as a sanity check), and it said Russell Street. !!! What? Oh no!

Now what! Where am I, and where is that, precisely, compared to where I should be?

I decided to keep going, and, huzzah!, I was going the right way.

I'm sure Baltimore isn't the only place where streets randomly turn into expressways, but I have been surprised by it more often, in Baltimore, than anywhere else.

Russell obligingly became Maryland 295, which was what I wanted, so all was serene.



I managed to make all the remaining turns and exits successfully, but I am here to tell you that that particular drive is *not* an easy one. Expressway exits on the left, multiple turn lanes (one of which will not be the correct lane once you turn, but which?).....

I made some last-minute lane changes to get there, but didn't have to do any back-tracking.

Very glad it was lunchtime rather than rush hour!



I handed over the rental car (if you ever want a BIG trunk, I can recommend an Impala).

I sat in the rental car building for a while, you guessed it, sipping soda&bitters.

I called my family to let them know that I had made it to the airport in a mere hour and a half (in the past we've gotten there via a half-hour cab ride). They were approaching the Maryland border.



I took the shuttle to the terminal.

My intelligent better half suggested that I might be able to get an earlier flight. I checked, but unfortunately Southwest's next flight was the one I was already booked on.

I went through security, and settled in to wait.

Here is your reward for sticking to it -- the only picture in this post:



Baltimore, on the airport floor. There was Washington, too, nearby, and I'd have taken a pic of it, as well, but people were walking on it. So rude. What about *my* needs????



I found a place to sit.

I read a book. I popped Tums. I chewed gum. I ate some soda crackers.

I had one last applesauce, which I was saving it for 5:00 so I'd be all soothed for my 6:10 flight.



At 3:00 I walked as far as you could walk in that terminal. Not very far, by Detroit Metro standards, but I expect it was good for me to get moving a bit.

Eventually it was 5:00, and I ate my applesauce -- which, it occurs to me to say, I took right through security. It was with my crackers (and Tums) in a plastic grocery bag, and it never occurred to me until after I'd gone through that it was probably "a liquid" that should have been a separate plastic bag for security.

Whatever.

It went through, and it wasn't a Risk, and I got to eat it.

Some time there will be a long rant on Evil Corporate "Food," but not now. I'll just mention that if you are trying to find something easy on the stomach and healthy to eat in an airport (like, say, applesauce), well, good luck with that!

Anyway.

Some time after 5:00 we all surged toward the gate, and at some point we began to line up, as one does to board Southwest.

Unfortunately, we learned we were getting a different crew from the one originally scheduled, and our new crew hadn't arrived. Sigh.

Wondering if my applesauce will wear off and I'll be sad............

The crew was only about 20 minutes late, and we took off 20 minutes late.

I surely appreciate the way people at Southwest seem to feel about their jobs! They all seem to be happy and upbeat, unlike the downtrodden individuals one so often encounters elsewhere at airports. They told us it was Southwest's birthday, and, say I, "Many More!"

The plane was crammed. I took my daughter's advice and sat in an aisle seat rather than my usually-preferred window. Not that there were any windows left, given my extremely late check-in time, but I didn't take a middle, so that I could get up as easily as possible. If necessary.............

I had ginger ale on the plane (I think for the second time in my life). I may develop a taste for that, too, in addition to bitters...............

The flight from Baltimore to Detroit is nice and short -- barely over an hour. A good thing, as I really wasn't enjoying my book all that much, and it was not growing on me..........

I believe it was cloudy all the way, and I'll hold that thought since I wasn't able to see much of anything out the windows from that aisle seat.



After the usual scenic drive around the airport once we landed in Detroit, we got to the terminal at about 8:00 pm.

I called my family to let them know I had landed. They were about 50 miles east of Toledo (you'll recall we went to the zoo there, just a few weeks ago), which meant they were about two hours from home.

I called the dogsitter to apprise her of my location and approximate ETA.

I took the shuttle to the parking lot, collected the little blue car, and headed home. (While we looove the way the Versa handles, it is rather stiff and bumpy on the highway. Compared to an Impala. Say.)



Once in Ann Arbor, I decided to stop for bread and milk, so that we could have breakfast without having to go out for anything.

The dog was fine, the dogsitter had taken care of everything. We chatted a little, and she headed home just as it began to storm.

It POURED down rain, and there was wind and some thunder.

I fixed a loose board on the fence gate and got rather wet.

I had my evening tea.

Just as I was beginning to wonder Where They Were, they arrived. Only about an hour after I did, despite the fact that they drove 10 hours and I flew.


Oy vey.


The important thing was that all went well for both parties, and we all got home, safe and sound. And the Stuff, too.

Whew.

And that was our day, in FAR more words than I am wont to use here.

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