Oh my goodness... SO much to tell you!
On Thursday, Meri and I headed out early in the morning and arrived in Des Moines for our flight out. We parked in long term parking and left our coats in the car. We weren't going to need them where we were going! The parking ticket was placed on the dash and we caught a shuttle to the airport.
We were jet set and ready to roll down the run way!!!
But first we had to make it through the TSA security. We didn't have to worry about anything as we had nothing wrong with anything we had, however as we came through security, one of the TSA guys came over and tackled Meri. Actually, she saw it coming as it was one of her close friends from high school! And it was really a hug and well wishes. I told her later that that was TSA's way of giving you a good pat down if you miss the first guy after the wand...
He didn't hug me though. Meri was suspect, I guess... ;)
After a delay leaving Des Moines, due to plane de-icing, and then of course we worried over our connecting flight, we were pleasantly surprised that our flight out of Chicago was delayed as well. Whew! So after a brief layover in Chicago, we started west on a different airplane.
The scenery was beautiful from what I could see of it...
She occasionally let me lean over for a shot, or graciously allowed me to steal her pics off our FB family group page.
By the time we rolled into Chicago (only an hour flight), we figured out the United online app so besides knowing now what gate to run to, we also found movies to watch on our phones! Yay! I'd been wanting to see Crazy Rich Asians! We watched that one on the way and a couple on the way back. I only got about a third of the way into my Dean Koonz book.
Meri did a lot of watching scenery while she had headphones plugged in.
So it was a pleasant flight and we enjoyed our time together.
Doesn't this one look like we're actually in space? Those phone filters are amazing...
We got talking to the woman in the next seat, just a little. I notice you're playing Sudoku! I too enjoy a game of Sudoku at times. Yeah - not much more than that.
She was a little cold at first and Meri texted me to watch out for her, she seemed mean. She wasn't, but I was still careful not to hog the elbow rest.
And Lookey there!!! We made it! Los Angeles...
After some rigmarole trying to find our rental shuttle and car, we finally hit the road. Well, almost. We took the wrong exit out of the parking lot and had to get out of the car so that the worker there could drive it in a U-turn and get us back IN the parking lot without popping our tires. Then sent us off to find a different exit.
REally??! The road is RIGHT THERE! Just a few more feet and we would have been good. Oh well... I'll play their game... for now...
For real then, we hit the road. The GPS led us through the worse part of L.A. trying to get to our hotel in Pasadena. We brought the GPS from home and while that said we'd be at the hotel in 32 minutes, Meri's phone GPS said 2 hours. hmmm One of these two is not accurate... We trusted Meri's as it meshed with what the car rental guy said and it WAS during rush hour.
We texted my niece, Abby, a few times and she headed up to our hotel to wait for us. Due to the traffic, she got to spend a lot of time at a coffee shop until we got there. I'm so glad her busy schedule allowed her time to hang out with us! We went to a Mexican restaurant around the corner from the hotel and heard all about her adventures trying to find a roommate that wasn't going to rip her off. She's now renting a room from one of her makeup artists and very happy. She's only going to be out there for a couple months, but she brought her car with her so she wouldn't have to rent anything for that amount of time. Smart...
She headed back to Venice and we went to bed. Whew! It had been a long day!
And that was day 1.
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