Chris requested an Uber XL vehicle to take us to the Newark airport for our flight to Seattle Tacoma Airport--from sea to shining sea. A taxi would have cost twice as much. Our driver must not have spoken too much English as he was not too talkative on the way to the airport. We had a flight at 10:40 am. It was delayed for half an hour and then moved back to being on-time. We were glad we chose to go to the airport instead of waiting that extra half hour at the hotel.
Chris enjoys the perks of Global Services travel through United all of the time when he travels; the girls in his life got a little taste of it as he had used all of his upgrade coupons for our flight from Newark to San Francisco. With that upgrade, we were able to check in at Global Services. The office was out of the main corridor and down the stairs in a secluded area. We were quickly checked in and our luggage was tagged and retrieved.
For some reason, everyone else in my family gets TSA pre-check except for me. The lady at the check-in counter went with me to security and walked me to the front of the line. The TSA agents were sooooooo slow. If they flagged a bag, they pulled it off to the side on a shorter table next to them. Once that table was full of bags, they would just stop scanning bags and wait until the other TSA agents came and picked another bag to open and go through. It was painfully slow to watch them sit and do nothing while you could see the security line getting longer and longer, and while we waited for our bags to come through the scanner. So inefficient.
Finally my jacket and small purse made it through the scanner and I could move on. Chris was waiting for me as he had sent the girls ahead to the United lounge. Another perk we got to enjoy. We were able to eat breakfast in the lounge and relax before working our way towards our gate.
We snuck in to the boarding line just as they were calling for Group 2 boarding. First class was delightful. We each had a seat with plenty of leg room and seats that could recline flat. I tried to reach my backpack down to retrieve my headphones and got smacked in the side of the head with its heaviness. I pulled my glasses off my head and the one ear piece was bent way out of alignment. Chris took them from me saying, "I can try to straighten them, but they might break in the process." I didn't have too much choice since they were unwearable. Fortunately Chris was able to straighten them out without breaking them. We got settled and were off two minutes before schedule.
I checked my Fitbit for the past nine days of our trip. 70 miles. We walked lots and lots. We had sore feet.
I spent the next six hours typing and working on my blog as well as chatting with Chris about the kind of dock we were going to order for our beach. I did take a break to watch The Martian.
As we arrived in San Francisco for an hour and half layover, we made our way to the United lounge there. We enjoyed snacks and treats. I helped a lady download the connect to the wifi and then download the United App to her iPad. Chris had to step in and help her set up the delete files option for email instead of archiving it. She was grateful and left me her name and email, inviting us to come stay with her anytime as they lived close to the Redwood Forest.
We headed toward Gate 60 for our short flight to Sea-Tac. We had a habit of arriving just after our boarding number. Made it though. We were seated in business class for our short ride to Washington. Chris sat in the row in front of us. Misha and Amy sat together and Kristen sat beside me. I gave her one of my headphone earphone pieces to listen to music with me. She had this habit of looking out the window and every time she did, she would pull me headphone piece from my ear. After so many times, I reclaimed my second earpiece from her.
We had a very courteous and attentive flight attendant on both of our flights today--Tony and then John. It was a long day of travel with very little walking. We arrived in Sea-Tac around 5:30 pm (though 8:30 NYC time and we were getting tired). We did our best to stay awake until 10 pm or so to acclimate to this new time zone.
Grandma picked us up from the airport. We totally filled her Kia minivan with people and luggage. Since she now lives on Anderson Island, we had to take in to consideration the ferry departure schedule. We thought at first that we would have to wait around until the last run of the day, but were able to check the ferry schedule and found that it was running about 20 minutes late. That was perfect timing for us as we pulled up into the second lane just as the first lane of cars were being loaded.
We climbed to the upper floor of the ferry. It was colder and windy, especially compared to the temperatures we had just experienced on the East coast, we grabbed jackets and enjoyed the view. The ferry ride to about 20 minutes.
We stopped at the small convenience store on the island to pick up some laundry soap for Amy. She has fairly sensitive skin, and using regular soap causes her to break out in a rash.
I started a couple loads of laundry after we arrived at Grandma Ball's house and got settled. It was Sunday tomorrow and some of us needed fresh clothing. We had sandwiches and salad for a late dinner with rhubarb crisp for dessert. We were all running on empty as it was well past our newly established bedtime.
The girls slept in the twin beds in one of Grandma's guest rooms while Chris and I slept in the other guest room. Kristen slept in Grandma's sewing room off the master bedroom. She put some earplugs in and was asleep in no time. Chris was already sleeping by the time I came back to our room.