My husband K and I got up at 7 to start our long travel day. We ate breakfast before we got our bags together and double checked the room. Then, it was all the way down to the lobby to checkout before heading to the elevators to get to the floor with the elevators for the garage. The car was packed and we were off at 8:30 with the odometer reading 25516.
It felt strange to be a passenger in the car after driving alone for so many days.
We stopped for one last fill-up at 8:39 (25518) at a Rainbow 5 gas station. The car only needed 1.253 gallons, which cost $5.859 each. We were on our way again at 8:43.
Since I wasn't driving, I was able to take a photo of one of those overpass decorations that I enjoyed.
We reached the Reno-Tahoe International Airport at 8:51 and returned the car with the odometer reading 25520. We'd put quite a few miles on it since we arrived- 1894 miles, to be exact.
We walked across the street to the terminal and I was struck by the fact that it really was a small airport. When we arrived here 12 days ago, we didn't see the ticketing area. It turns out that it was just on the other side of the hall from baggage claim with that skier sculpture in the middle. There wasn't another terminal. This was it. And, while there were B and C gates, there were no A gates. Weird.
In the ticketing area, there was a still life of stuffed animals, none of which we'd seen in the state.
Our bags were dropped off and we were on our way at 9:08. We looked at a shop to grab food for the flight before going to security at 9:16. There was no one in the TSA Precheck line when we got there. We finished with security at 9:22 and took our time getting to gate C10, but we still were seated there at 9:35. On the way, though, we saw this clever sculpture called Your Gate by Michelle Moffitt.
To kill some time, I went around and took pictures out the windows. None of the views here gave a great idea of just how tall some of the nearby mountains were, which I knew from being out and about lately.
11:06 found us finally seated in seats 32 D and E on AA2722 to Dallas-Fort Worth for the first leg of our trip home. The plane pushed back at 11:21 and took off at 11:35.
It was an uneventful flight, but I had quite a surprise in the restroom. I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention, but I noticed that there was a changing table above the toilet. That was such an incredibly small space for that!
When we landed at 4:30 pm CDT, it was an incredibly hard landing. There was no warning and no apology, of course. It took five minutes to get to the gate and another 15 for us to get in the terminal. You can see in the photo below that Dallas-Fort Worth was definitely busier than Reno. The terminal was even more so.
We needed to eat dinner and K thought that the Maggiano's would be a good choice, when we reached it at 5:06. Unfortunately, they were woefully understaffed. A table near us never got cleared and it took time for the waitress to just get water to us. I ordered the entree-size Italian Tossed Salad for $14.99 and K ordered Mom's Lasagna for an appalling $18.99. We thought that since it was an airport restaurant, the food would not take long to get out. It didn't get to us until 5:25. An over 15-minute wait in a regular restaurant, but in an airport it just doesn't work. We had to absolutely scarf it down.
At 6 pm, we were seated in 25 D and E on AA1336 to Orlando. The plane didn't push back until 6:22 and takeoff was at 6:31.
This was a short trip, less than 2.5 hours. We landed at 9:56 pm EDT in Orlando. Taxiing to the gate took just 4 minutes and we were out at Gate 58 at 10:10. We took the shuttle over to the main terminal and had no trouble collecting our bags. At 10:30, we were on the van to the offsite parking.
This place delivers you right to your car, which was at 10:40 for us. K tipped the driver $2 and we got our luggage into the car. We were on the road at 10:50 and reached our driveway at 11:21, which is pretty quick, but it was night.
My phone said that I walked 4,970 steps for 1.6 miles today, which surprised me. It didn't feel like I'd done that much.
This was definitely a great trip! We got to visit 2 state capitols, which leaves me just 1 to complete both the South and the far West. We got to visit Lassen Volcanic, which I've wanted to visit for quite a while. Lava Beds was surprisingly engaging. And, I got to see wildflowers in Yosemite!
2023's ClarinetFest is in Denver for its 50th anniversary. We should be able to go down to New Mexico to pick up that last state capitol that I need out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment