Back Through Amarillo and Vegas to Home
Mar. 15th, 2022 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerBack Home - Mon, 14 Mar 2022, 9pm
After visiting the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society Museum this morning it was time to head home. It'd be a journey of more than 10 hours.
The first leg of the journey was driving to Amarillo. The airport was less than 30 miles away, and it's not a busy metro area so it was an easy drive. On the way in Saturday night I'd observed that the roadside scenery in Amarillo is fairly monotonous. We passed truck sellers, car sellers, tractor sellers, ATV sellers, RV sellers, truck repair shops, car repair shops, ATV and RV repair shops, and gas stations for cars and trucks. With every bit of commerce oriented around machinery with an internal combustion engine it was like a hellish version of the Pixar movie Cars. Oh, and there were gun stores. Guns, the one thing catered to that doesn't involve an engine. Things we didn't see? Grocery stores. Hospitals. Clothing stores that didn't also sell guns. On the way back we put that to use in our favor, stopping at one of umpteen truck stops along I-40 for lunch and to fill up our tank.
We arrived at AMA airport with plenty of time to spare. AMA, with just 7 gates, is one of those airports regulars know they can get through quickly. Most people didn't even show up for our flight until about 15 minutes before schedule boarding. And despite the otherwise empty airport, this flight was full.
As the AMA-LAS flight was full, every seat was occupied. I boarded early and got a good seat in an exit row. Then I won the tough-luck lottery when a 6'1", 300 lbs. guy sat in the middle next to me. Well, when there's two of us like that, the good news is we usually agree pretty quickly that we'll be forgiving about other's elbows rubbing against us. There's no room— literally no room— to be prissy about such things. And my rowmate was even calm when I developed a bloody nose during the flight. He quickly offered a few napkins from his pocket.
In Las Vegas we had a long connection, over 2 hours. We killed time just sitting at the gate area with our computers and wifi. The long connection stretched even longer when our aircraft had a minor mechanical problem. We took off more than 30 minutes late. Again I had an exit row seat, and again I had a person in the middle next to me, but this time it was a far more svelte individual. And other than that I don't remember much as I fell asleep immediately after takeoff and didn't wake up until the final approach for landing.
At SJC airport we collected our checked bag and hailed a ride with Lyft. Fortunately neither took very long. We walked through our front door a few minutes after 7pm.
Once home our first order of business was to make some dinner. We microwaved leftover/frozen food. My dinner was pasta with meatballs and sauce. After that we unpacked. We like unpacking the night we return because we know that if we don't, if we leave the suitcases past the start of the work week, we won't finish unpacking for days. Hawk started a load of laundry. I left my laundry to do Tuesday morning, a perk of working from home. Now we're just relaxing and will shower before going to bed. We'll even get to bed at a reasonable hour, the better to get back to work tomorrow morning. That's why we like flights that get us home around 7pm rather than after 10.
After visiting the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society Museum this morning it was time to head home. It'd be a journey of more than 10 hours.
The first leg of the journey was driving to Amarillo. The airport was less than 30 miles away, and it's not a busy metro area so it was an easy drive. On the way in Saturday night I'd observed that the roadside scenery in Amarillo is fairly monotonous. We passed truck sellers, car sellers, tractor sellers, ATV sellers, RV sellers, truck repair shops, car repair shops, ATV and RV repair shops, and gas stations for cars and trucks. With every bit of commerce oriented around machinery with an internal combustion engine it was like a hellish version of the Pixar movie Cars. Oh, and there were gun stores. Guns, the one thing catered to that doesn't involve an engine. Things we didn't see? Grocery stores. Hospitals. Clothing stores that didn't also sell guns. On the way back we put that to use in our favor, stopping at one of umpteen truck stops along I-40 for lunch and to fill up our tank.
We arrived at AMA airport with plenty of time to spare. AMA, with just 7 gates, is one of those airports regulars know they can get through quickly. Most people didn't even show up for our flight until about 15 minutes before schedule boarding. And despite the otherwise empty airport, this flight was full.
As the AMA-LAS flight was full, every seat was occupied. I boarded early and got a good seat in an exit row. Then I won the tough-luck lottery when a 6'1", 300 lbs. guy sat in the middle next to me. Well, when there's two of us like that, the good news is we usually agree pretty quickly that we'll be forgiving about other's elbows rubbing against us. There's no room— literally no room— to be prissy about such things. And my rowmate was even calm when I developed a bloody nose during the flight. He quickly offered a few napkins from his pocket.
In Las Vegas we had a long connection, over 2 hours. We killed time just sitting at the gate area with our computers and wifi. The long connection stretched even longer when our aircraft had a minor mechanical problem. We took off more than 30 minutes late. Again I had an exit row seat, and again I had a person in the middle next to me, but this time it was a far more svelte individual. And other than that I don't remember much as I fell asleep immediately after takeoff and didn't wake up until the final approach for landing.
At SJC airport we collected our checked bag and hailed a ride with Lyft. Fortunately neither took very long. We walked through our front door a few minutes after 7pm.
Once home our first order of business was to make some dinner. We microwaved leftover/frozen food. My dinner was pasta with meatballs and sauce. After that we unpacked. We like unpacking the night we return because we know that if we don't, if we leave the suitcases past the start of the work week, we won't finish unpacking for days. Hawk started a load of laundry. I left my laundry to do Tuesday morning, a perk of working from home. Now we're just relaxing and will shower before going to bed. We'll even get to bed at a reasonable hour, the better to get back to work tomorrow morning. That's why we like flights that get us home around 7pm rather than after 10.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-16 10:55 am (UTC)I suppose I did manage it for Pinewoods this past summer, which was a good decision --coming home from ten very humid and foggy days in the woods, where literally every piece of clothing was kinda damp, it seemed like a REALLY GOOD IDEA to get the several bags worth of things open and spread out with the dehumidifier and laundry started. I think I managed almost two whole hours of unpacking work before falling into a three hour nap.
~Sor
no subject
Date: 2022-03-17 01:11 am (UTC)