2002 Q2 Vacation: 38°46.3195’N, 117°27.39441’W

Day 6: 21 May 2002

00:00 UTC – 09:00 UTC (Relaxing Journal Email and TV)

After a bit of rest, I got active again. It was time once again to catch up on the journal. And to do a bunch of email. And to watch TV. There was some movie on TV. Enemy of the State I think. So I watched that. And a documentary on Pope John Paul II. I went down once or twice to check out the casino, but I was never inspired to do anything. So I always went back to the room. After I got completely caught up on email and the journal, I did postcards. When all the postcards were done, I was really tired.

09:00 UTC – 15:00 UTC (Sleep)

I slept right away once I decided to. Then the alarm rang.

15:00 UTC – 18:00 UTC (Breakfast and Pack)

I got up as soon as I could manage, showered, then decided to go get a breakfast. I ended up downstairs at the hotel diner and had some sort of omelet thing. It was fine. But it was nothing to write home about. I headed back upstairs and packed up the stuff I had in the hotel room real quick, then ran and checked out. I was running late.

I got to my car. Now it was time to pack up my tent and all the stuff that I had just thrown into the car after I got stuck. I frantically work inside the truck ad I try to stuff everything back in the suitcase. At one point I pause.

I look at my jacket. The jacket that I had put under my wheel in the mud to get some traction. The jacket I had then had to reach down under the wheel, completely under the mud level, to pull the jacket out. The jacket which had come out of the mud as just a bit of fabric hidden inside a ball of oozing dripping mud the size of a basketball. The jacket I had spred out on the grass to try to dry while I spent the night in the tent. The jacket that had still been heavily laden with wet mud when I left the spot I had gotten stuck, it which time I simply threw it in the back of the truck. The jacket which still, days later, was just a huge mass of sloppy wet mud.

I paused. But then I stuffed the ball of mud into my suitcase with all my other stuff. In retrospect, it probably would have been good to put it in a bag or something, but as it was, I just slopped it in there, allowing mud to then start oozing over everything else in the suitcase as well.

After having the jacket in, I stuffed all the rest in. The suitcase would barely close, but by putting my weight on it and forcing it, I was able to get it in. Barely. Closing the zipper was hard. But I got it done.

I was running late. Time to get to the airport as quickly as possible.

18:00 UTC – 19:00 UTC (Reno Airport)

So, getting to the airport, the first thing was returning the rental SUV. I got in there, dropped it off, and got out pretty quick. They did not insect it at the time. But I am almost sure I will get a bill for damage later. Now, as far as I knew there was no MAJOR damage, just two things I know about, only one of which is real damage.

The real damage? I broke the ashtray. How did I break the ashtray? Why did I break the ashtray? Well, when the truck was tipped at a 30 degree angle, and I was crawling up out the passengers side, I stepped on it and snapped it out of the place it was supposed to be. Woops.

The non-real damage? Well, you probably guessed. Between the mud, the jacket in the back, and me having the windows open during the worst dust storms in 30 years, the inside of the truck was just a huge mass of mud and dirt all over the place. (Not to mention some of the trash I was in too much of a hurry to throw away.) What a mess.

Anyway, off I went to check-in. The line wasn’t too bad. I was up to the front in a few minutes. Now we hit a problem. My suitcase was overweight. The limit was 70 pounds. The bag was 82 pounds. I was 12 pounds overweight. I didn’t get it at first. I really hadn’t bought much in terms of souvenirs. And I hadn’t been overweight on the way out. A couple books maybe. And not big ones. Then suddenly I realized. The jacket. Still encased completely in wet sopping mud. From picking it up to put it in the suitcase it was still pretty heavy. It was easily 10 pounds of mud I’d just put in my suitcase. Ah. OK. I got it now.

It would have been amusing to pull out the big muddy ball and tell the attendant, hey, just throw this away will ya, then I’ll be under. This of course as I am opening up the suitcase and holding up a big ball of dripping black goo. But no, I didn’t want to do that. I paid the extra fee for the overweight bag. What choice did I really have?

I headed to the gate and boarded shortly thereafter.

19:00 UTC – 00:00 UTC (Flights Home)

After I boarded, I saw them loading my overweight bag. (The black one.)

The flight to Phoenix was completely uneventful. As I was in Phoenix for my brief layover (about an hour) I regretted that I had not found time during the trip to make a detour to Tucson where my Grandmother on my Dad’s side lives. If I had managed to get to the random spot on the first or second try instead of the third, I might have managed it. But as it was the days were pretty full for the most part.

I then got onto the flight back to Newark. Now, when they first called for pre-boarding, I made a quick trip to the restroom. When I got back I assumed they were already boarding the back of the plane where I was. So I waited in line. But when I got to the front the woman doing the boarding politely told me they were still only pre-boarding, so I had to wait. Then they boarded 20 and above. I was 19. I patiently waited.

I noticed this one girl go in. This will become important later.

They called rows 15-19 next, and the woman said “OK, your turn now.” And I finally went in. Now, when I got to my seat, I noticed the girl who had gone in earlier that I mentioned. (I’d guess she was 18 max…perhaps younger.) She was in 19B. She had gone in when it was Row 20 and above!! Cheater!!!! I was in 19A. Now, as I got a few feet away, she looked around, and then hopped out of 19B and into 19A. What was up with that?

I get there a few seconds later and do the “I think I’m 19A” thing and she moves to let me in and sits back in 19B. As she is already moving, I am thinking “Hmmm, if she really wanted the window, I would have let her stay there.”.