On the Road Again

Greetings, random people who read my blog.  I'm heading off again.  This one has a little bit of private holiday at the front end (in London) and then a lengthier bit with my parents.  I'll try to keep up the blogging as wi-fi allows, as I'm going to some new places so there should be interesting bits.  Also, you know, the standard philosophical meaderings I go off on when I'm away from home and, paradoxically, somewhat more myself.

As usual, I took off the day before the trip in order to pack and get my life in order; and, as usual, I procrastinated and was up later than I thought I'd be.  (In part, I blame the termite inspector.  I figured that, since I was home anyway, I might as well have the termite guy come out, inspect my termite damage, and give me an estimate for killing my termites.  This happened many times, when I lived in the condo, and the process usually took about five minutes.  (He'd say "Yes, those are termite droppings.  It'll be $300.")  This termite guy, however, wanted to inspect my whole house, take depressing photos of all of my dry rot, go back into his car for 20 minutes, and return with a powerpoint presentation on his ipad including stock close-up photos of termites, all culminating in "there's termites outside your garage and outside one of your windows -- so you should tent your house for $2500."  Um, "no."  So "no."  But you're not hear to read about termites.  I just mention this because the whole inspection/sales pitch process took about an hour and a half out of my day of packing.  Two hours, if you include seething time.)

So, yeah, packed late, went to sleep late, didn't get a ton of it. 

Now, I'm travelling on airline points, so I had to take the flights they'd give me on points -- as opposed to, say, the direct flight or the more logical connection.  This is why I flew to Denver -- arriving at 3:20 in the afternoon -- when the onward flight to London isn't leaving until 8:45.  No, no, scratch that.  It leaves at 8:45 if it's on time.  I woke up this morning to the cheerful news (Google Now already knew) that my connecting flight was delayed an hour and a half.  Yeah, so I'm cooling my heels in the Denver International Airport for seven hours.

Last time I spent a whole damn day in an airport, it was the airport in Vegas, which was half-empty.  Literally.  Like, the terminal had several wings and a couple of them were just barricaded off because they weren't using that part of the airport.  I was bored to tears.  That's not a metaphor -- I was yawning so much, tears came to my eyes.  Thank goodness I'd had the good sense to put the entire first season of Copper on a USB drive, so I was mainlining civil war era cop drama, trying to drown out the ever-present slot machine sounds.

Denver airport ranks a bit higher (and, bonus, my points get me into the lounge), although it loses points for an utter lack of ready maps.  Like, there were several signs telling me the lounge was at the North end of A Gates, but was there anything telling me which way North was?  My flawless sense of direction being what it is, I had a lovely walk down to the South end of the terminal . . . .  I'd be ticked about it if I was in a hurry, but, really, once I'd found the lounge and sat in it for a few hours, I actually left to go explore the terminal.  It's a long damn wait, is what I'm saying.

Not complaining, though:  VACATION!!

If everything goes according to plan, tomorrow is a shopping day, Saturday is a go-visit-a-stately-home-with-a-friend" day, and Sunday is a kayaking day (read:  see-how-out-of-shape-I-really-am day).  I'm fairly excited about kayaking -- although I am a bit concerned as I haven't been exercising.  I mean, last time I went kayaking, I was at a place where I was doing 45 minutes on the elliptical every day.  This time, I managed 15 minutes on the elliptical once last week.  My endurance is, er, shit, is what I'm saying.  So I was glad when the 90-minute and 2-hour kayak tours were sold out, so all I could book was a 1-hour trip.  Hopefully, we'll take the slow, scenic route.  (All of it downstream?)