The California Coast. I haven't been here in a while, but surprisingly, I wasn't feeling that great about taking this cruise. My uncle might not want to see me. I might not enjoy the visit to San Francisco. And RQS's cousin (in San Diego) and I might not get along. So many things could go wrong, and I wasn't yet ready for this trip.
So it was with a little trepidation that I trekked off to RQS's place on the day before our flight. I took the time to explain this to her, and she understood how I was feeling. She was a little nervous, as she'd be leaving her 18 year old cat with the sitter for 10 days. Even with these things on our mind, we were committed to this trip, and hoped to enjoy it, no matter what happened.
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The next day, it was off to the airport. We got there a bit early and breezed through security, leaving us 2 hours to kill before the flight was to board. When we checked our bags, we found that our seats had been changed. Our plane was changed, and we were lucky to get compatible seat assignments to what we had on the original plane. We boarded the plane quickly, accidentally cutting in front of the line. And this gave us the leeway to find space in the overhead bins for our carry-on luggage and my CPAP machine. Given that we were told that there might not be enough space in the overhead bins, this was a stroke of good fortune.
About 6 hours later, we were in Los Angeles, and made our way to the hotel. We found that by being a member of the hotel's loyalty program, we could get free wi-fi. So I signed up, but the software wouldn't let me finish the demographic entry process. This was a problem that the hotel's staff couldn't fix. And this caused me to be charged for wi-fi later on. (Mariott's Bonvoy software is crap, and I don't trust their programmers to get things right - avoid the chain and its partners if possible.)
Being tired, we didn't bother to shop around for a restaurant, as there was nothing in walking distance of the airport hotels. Instead, we ate at the hotel, and spent $120 for a dinner we could get at a local diner for $50. You can guess how quickly we fell asleep after dinner....
