Wednesday: April 10
San Antonio to Boston,The Rest of San Antonio
We apparently got off easy with last night’s storm. I guess the wind was blowing along our window, but in John’s case, it was blowing towards the window. For him, the rain was coming in and puddling on the floor. It was also dripping down where the coffee machine was. He tried calling the front desk, but the phone didn’t seem to be working. He went down to tell them, and then sent up a bunch of towels to sop up the puddles.
At breakfast, we heard similar stories from several other people.
After breakfast, we got mostly packed up and had about an hour to kill. To be different, we walked past the cathedral in the direction opposite to the River Walk. I was sort of amazed to find that there was more to the city than just the area around the river.
They were just starting a Mass at the cathedral. They were playing a song that I was familiar with from my church, but it sounded a bit strange. Then I realized that the tune was the same, but the words were in Spanish.
|
|
We continued further, took some pictures of the Governor’s Palace, and made our way to the Historic Market Square. In hindsight, we should have visited the area on one of the previous days. We had literally only about 10-15 minutes to scurry around a lot of shops, buy a few trinkets, and then we had to hurry back to the hotel.
|
|
We checked out just before 11, ordered an Uber, and had an uneventful ride to the airport. We got our boarding passes and dropped off our checked baggage. As I cleared my pockets for security, Amy stopped in a store and bought a few things, including a jar of salsa. I was sort of aghast, thinking that there was no way this would get through security. Amy’s thought was “why would they sell it in the departure area if it couldn’t go through security?” Unfortunately, I was correct, and Amy lost it.
In hindsight, if she had found it earlier, she could have put in her checked bag before checking it.
TSA-pre worked well again, being both easier and with a shorter line.
We found our gate, and I checked at the podium, and I found that our flight would only have snacks (unless I was flying first class). So I left Amy with the luggage, went off in search of food, and ended up getting us a pair of BBQ brisket sandwiches. We planned to bring them on the plane and eat them in the air.
|
I returned to Amy, and then had a panic attack when I realized that at some point when I had taken my phone out of my pocket, I had apparently dropped my boarding pass (which had been in the same pocket). I figured that I had a snowball’s chance of finding it, so just went up to the podium, told them what happened, and they just checked my ID and printed me out a new one. It ended up being not a big issue.
When we had booked our flights, we couldn’t at that time select seats. By the time we realized that we could and actually did so, there was a terrible selection of seats available. We ended up getting two middle seats in adjacent rows (e.g. something like 22B and 23B).
As with all of the flights on this trip, they repeatedly said that the plane was completely full, there may not be enough overhead storage, and were looking for people to check their carry-on. Because of this, we tried to be near the start of the line when they opened up our boarding group. Amy got a bit ahead of me, and checked in before I did. When she did, they said that she had a seat change, took her boarding pass, and gave her a new one that they printed out. Her new seat was the window seat next to me! I have no idea why this happened, but I wasn’t about to ask questions. (It didn’t repeat itself on the second leg.)
Not only was it friendlier being next to each other, but it made it easier to eat the lunch that we brought on board.
On the flight, I finished watching Zone of Interest, which I had half watched on the way down, and then watched another movie.
We had a relatively short layover, and during it, we had to take the subway between terminals. We found our gate, and then we took turns making a quick pit stop. We were due to get in around 8:30 or 9:00, so I wanted some “dinner” along the way. There wasn’t much time before boarding, so I went to the McD’s next to our gate. It was close, and I figured that it would be quick. So, of course, this was one of the slowest McDonald’s that I’ve been to. I got just a simple normal cheeseburger, figuring that it would be quick, but such was not the case. They started boarding the priority groups while I was frantically waiting for my sandwich. I got back to the gate halfway through “Main 1”. A few minutes later, they called “Main 2 and 3”, and we jumped in line. I got my seat and ate my burger before boarding finished.
Our departure was a bit delayed. From what the pilot said, when they got to the runway, they couldn’t take off because of some “weather” beyond the end of the runway. If I understood him properly, for reasons that I don’t understand, they had to leave the runway and get back in line. Maybe this was so that they could land planes on that runway? In any event, this put us back about 10-15 minutes. This ended up being good for me.
The weather was a bit turbulent, so they delayed starting beverage service. They had only gone a few rows behind me, when the pilot announced that they were starting their descent, and the crew should start preparing the cabin for landing. I don’t know if the last rows got a beverage or not.
I ended up timing my last movie perfectly. I started it before we took off, and it ended after we landed, but while the people getting out of their seats was still a number of rows in front of me. If it hadn’t been for the take-off delay, I would have lost the last 10 minutes of my movie.
We got our bags without much difficulty or delay, found the shared van area, and didn’t have long to wait for our van to arrive.
I always find this portion of the trip to be somewhat depressing. The excitement of the trip is over, and now I have to return to reality and start worrying about going to work tomorrow, all of the chores that I have piled up, etc. In this case, we also went from a warm, green environment to a cooler, wet climate, where the trees were still bare. On the plus side, however, I got by with just my fleece shirt, and I didn’t have to put on my jacket.
We got home probably around 10 or 10:30. I did minimal unpacking, had a small snack, and went to bed.