December 19, 2024
Flight
In spite of ourselves, with the help of friends we manage to catch our flight and leave California, bound for the economic security of medical resources covered by our health insurance. Checking out of our Airbnb is simple, with the hosts placing few expectations on us when we leave. It’s a matter of generally tidying the place up, gathering together our few travel belongings, and stepping out the door at eleven, the checkout time.
Alicia and her husband (another Jason? I forget) are walking toward us as we head for the garage, and we stop for several minutes to thank them again for their kindness and flexibility as well as to give them a last update on our situation. And then we load our bags into the back of the car, I back it out of the garage to improve our chances of leaving one unscarred bumper on the poor thing, and then we switch places and Rachael drives us down the alley.
We don’t get far though. After just a block Rachael pulls off into a curbside parking space and we walk out to the kiosk at the center of little Mitchell Park. Not due at Liz and George’s until noon we have some time to kill, and this looks like a pleasant spot for it. For the next half hour we sit on the steps of the kiosk enjoying the warm, sunny morning, me with my Lumix out and cocked and my least bad eye scanning the tree lines hoping that one of those American crows I hear and occasionally see in the distance will alight close enough that I can claim bird number five for the new year. It doesn’t happen though, and when noontime nears we pile back into the Raven and Rachael drives us across town to our lunch date.
Liz and George are out front waiting for us when we drive up. I’m at the wheel again, steering the car into their driveway and under George’s guidance edge it up close to the garage where it won’t overhang into the sidewalk. We go inside where a fine lunch awaits us: open faced turkey sandwiches with grey poupon mustard, and a delicious turkey soup that George has whipped up for us that includes dark purple potatoes that look like sausage slices.
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An hour later the timekeeper announces it’s time to go, the goal being to arrive at the small SLO airport two hours before departure to allow plenty of time for something to go wrong. As we’re driving down their hill I see the unmistakable blue flash of a California scrub jay fly across the road a half block ahead, land on a brown rooftop and then quickly disappear again a few quick hops after landing. I proudly announce what I’ve seen, Liz (whose mother is renowned on eBird as one of the finest birders in the region) concurs with the identification, and I make a mental note to take credit for this bird and those crows in the park earlier in case I never see another.
It’s a good thing we allowed plenty of time, because we need it. When we get out of the car I take inventory and realize I’m missing my rucksack. That would be the one with both iPads in it, and both cameras; and as I’ll realize moments later, our passports. Poor Liz and George have one last favor to bestow and promptly head back home to retrieve it from wherever I left it behind in my daftness or half-blindness.
While we wait for them to return, we go inside the nearly empty airport and Rachael gets herself checked in. We’ve got one bag to check and the boarding passes to be obtained, but for now we just pick up hers because I have no ID. The passports are still AWOL until Liz and George return with them, and I’m still missing my driver’s license.
Twenty minutes later we finally see their white car round the bend about three blocks away and there’s a quick handoff, a quick hug, and a final farewell for now. It took them awhile to find it, still lying on the floor of the Raven where I’d left it when we got out. It’s a vision problem - things straight below disappear into a grey haze and it’s easy to overlook them. It’s part of the mental training I’m working on, learning to be as methodical as possible and keep careful inventory of what I’m carrying along.
I’ve got my ID now so we return to the Alaska desk to complete check-in. There are two desks active, and we’re the only ones in line so it shouldn’t take long. We’re wrong though. Perhaps a half hour later we’re still standing there first in line, but now with a lengthy line of other travelers queued up behind us. It’s perplexing why there’s no progress at all. In front of us is one sole traveler who waits and waits and waits because of some unknown issue; and at the other desk is a whole catastrophe - two parents, three young antsy boys, heaps of baggage, a stroller for the youngest. It exhausts me completely to watch them and imagine how difficult it must be for them just getting on with it.
Oh, and while we’re waiting for those twenty minutes or so we’ve got company. There are those half dozen or so passengers back behind us, but there’s this other imaginary queue of phantoms hovering just off my right shoulder. The hallucinations are back. They really do seem real enough that I’m constantly looking back to see if anyone is actually there right beside me because I have to fart and I don’t want to do it right in someone’s face.
Finally both lines clear at almost the same moment, and perhaps a minute later we’re walking the short distance to the security line where our trusted traveler status gives us priority and benefits. In this small airport that means it entitles us to pass through security without removing our shoes. Woo, hoo!
There’s nothing to the flight, which is only two hours long. For the first hour Rachael finishes her book while I start culling through photos on the iPad looking for ones I can scrap. After she finishes her book though we enjoy flipping through photos from our tour of Europe, beginning with our misery waiting for the ferry to Mallorca when we’re both sick, and making it up to the walls of Ávila by the time the descent begins.
Fifteen minutes later we’re standing curbside waiting for Bruce and Andrea to drive up in their brand new all electric vehicle they picked up this summer, and a half hour later they drop us off at the door of our condo building in the Pearl District where we’re booked for the next five weeks. They idle there long enough to see we’re managing to get inside, and then drive off.
We quickly settle in to our wierd, small studio apartment that there’ll be more to say about later, and then walk the two blocks to the neighborhood Safeway for the essentials to get us through the first night. Even though we know the neighborhood and this store (we lived two blocks from here for fifteen years), it’s a challenge for me. There are a few times we get separated in the store looking for different items but then I have a hard time relocating Rachael because I can’t see down the aisles well enough to pick her out. If nothing significant improves with my vision, we have some life skills work and some new behaviors to learn ahead of us.
In a last indignity for the day, they won’t sell me the six-pack from Migration Brewing that I’d popped in the cart. They won’t sell it to me because I’ve got no ID to prove I’m of age. Without Rachael along I’d have ended the day without the real IPA I’ve been looking forward to for five or six days now.
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Glad you’ve landed, so to speak. Looking forward to the next chapters.
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