UMTravels

It’s never a good day when it starts at 3:30am hurling your guts out and by the time everything is cleaned up you are back in bed at 4 to be up at six to catch the train.

And speaking of the train, it changed to a bus… mudslides north of Seattle. Oh joy.

And speaking of joy – nothing like hurling in the bathroom of a moving bus. That nailed it – yes, I’d managed to give myself food poisoning, and most likely Jill which, confirmed later via text, she kept hers down, but was seriously uncomfortable all night.

I arrived in Bellingham looking a bit “under the weather” – luckily Johnnie picked me up and put me to bed where I zonked out for the next two hours fully dressed (minus shoes) under the covers – park of that was that the heat in the bus wasn’t working for most of the trip, and Johnnie being the frugal guy he is, keeps his place a wee pit chillier than I keep mine.

I did manage to eat the other half of the sausage breakfast burrito (I left the first half on the bus, if you know what I mean) and some goats milk yogurt, sliced banana, a little honey and vanilla before the cab took us to the airport around 3:15.

Must say that the Bellingham Airport is a dinky little thing not nearly big enough to accommodate all the flights going in and out. Horizon, Alaska, and Allegiant fly out now – with Alaska and Allegiant flying full sized planes in – needless to say, the check-in and security area was a zoo, especially since Allegiant caters to the Canadian tourist headed to Las Vegas (which Alaska also serves with a big jet – it’s the other two flights that the Hawaii plane makes in a day) and all the Alaska travelers are on packages…. Basically, it was Johnnie and I in the MVP/1^st Class line. I overheard one guy saying it had taken him an hour and forty-five minutes to get to the counter and through security. Ick.

And no, they didn’t take my coupons so I can call and try to upgrade my Chicago flight in early March. This was reinforced when in the waiting room they came on the intercom and started selling upgrades for $150 a person. Mid-way through the flight I asked “Tim”, our cabin boy about the numbers of Golds and MVPs on board – the Gold would be me, and a handful of MVPs that were travelling with other people who didn’t want to take the upgrade – he said after the 24 hour cut-off that they had 5 people in 1^st out of 16 seats. Nice.

During the flight I took nibbles of the meal (which was really quite good) to put something in my stomach, and even had a little watered down scotch to kill the parasites in my stomach (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) and watched the end of Willy Wonky and the Chocolate Factory (from the Boston trip when I didn’t get to finish it), some lame movie about adults and children, and some junk TV reruns – there goes any fresh material for the return trip next week!

With the Pepto Bismal caplets I’d been taking all day, everything seems to be staying in place.

The shuttle from the airport, while cheap ($15 round-trip) is not quick. Got to the hotel around 11pm and we were both hungry again… hello ABC Store, those ubiquitous convenience stores on every corner in Hawaii. We stocked up on large sandwiches (large enough to have the other half for breakfast) and soda, ate, and went to bed.

For tomorrow we have a 10:45 surf lesson from www.girlswhosurf.com – with the Japanese 2010 Long Board winner teaching Johnnie how to surf again after a thirty year absence.

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