Airport to Cleef

A good night’s sleep always shows on one’s face. For instance, when I stumbled into the aggressively lit bathroom this morning, I saw a crusty-eyed face looking back at me in the mirror. A bit of dried drool lined the corner of my mouth down to my chin.

Humans are not meant to wake at 3:00 AM.

Obviously my mother agrees with this sentiment, because her alarm rang and rang until I walked into her room. She hadn’t stirred, so I knew she was at risk of oversleeping.

We all have had a very busy few weeks.

I lumbered around for a few minutes, forgot to weigh myself — for comparative purposes at the end of trail (darn it) — and walked back to the bathroom to find Mom brushing her teeth. I thought she knew I was standing there as I watched her zombie-like motions in the early morning. When she looked up, she screamed, “Baah!” And mouthed a swear word.

“I thought you saw me!” I laughed.

“I did not see you until I saw you in the mirror, weirdo,” she said.

Scaring her like that never gets old.

Onto the airport!

Southwest is known for its hospitality, and if I remember correctly, this was my first southwest flight I’d ever been on. Security doesn’t allow for trekking poles, trowels, and sometimes utility knives, if you have a pesky security guard. Normally I don’t check bags on the many accounts of them having been redirected, delayed, or stuck behind a jammed cargo door.

I stepped up to the baggage-check line and watched a group of Southwest flight attendants walk by. One of the attendants was complaining to her coworker.

“I’m not responsible for corporate planning. What do you want me to do about you booking your flight? We’re early!”

All four of the attendants had Starbucks drinks. I vaguely wondered what kind of discount they get from the airport vendors as I stood behind a line of other glass-eyed passengers.

My dad actually booked my flight for me with the hopes that he could get points for the purchase since I don’t ever fly Southwest.

He didn’t get any points for purchasing my ticket.

I’d been so busy this week that I completely forgot to check in for my flight. It was a good thing that checking a bag also entailed checking in myself.

The line through security lasted about two minutes, something that is practically nonexistent in terminal 2 of the RDU airport.

I was crammed in between two people at the back of the plane for my first flight. There were quite a few empty seats in the back, even some empty rows. Too exhausted to ask to switch, I fell asleep as the plane was taking off.

AUS airport in Austin was… different. And cool. The security systems that bags go through looked like MRI machines and there was even a robot coffee maker. With all this new technology coming out and talk of it overtaking our workforce, I definitely didn’t expect my job to be threatened. That being said, I doubt robot baristas will be what most people want for their local cafe environment.

My flight to San Diego was another cold flight where I again laid my buff on my lap like a blanket. To balance out the scale of being squished in my last flight, I was in an aisle seat in row six with extra leg room.

Score.

They even gave us honey roasted pistachios! Those did sort of taste like salted peanuts to me, but I was hungry and couldn’t complain.

It was apparently Southwest’s anniversary or something — I don’t really know — but Dad flew in on a plane decked out in USA paint and the lady asked over the intercom if anyone wanted to volunteer to sing the national anthem.

A nervous lady rose to the occasion with no special singing voice, but we all sang along and it was pretty cool.

Dad finally came off the carrier and we grabbed a bite to eat then found our way to the shuttle that would take us to the PCT shuttle we booked to Cleef, our first stay where we would begin the trail.

Marmalade was our driver, a tall, retired guy wearing a white sun hoodie with the map of the PCT down the front. He took us to REI, where we grabbed our fuel cans, then to a little store where we waited an hour for some sandwiches we ordered. We’d tried calling about a dozen times on the way there from the airport to place the order, but the phone was out. Oh well.

We were dropped off at the terminus to begin the trail. It was only a half-mile walk to camp, so we hiked back and set up our tents.

Later that evening there was a long talk about all things PCT that were valuable lessons learned. It had been a long day and I’d been awake since midnight pacific time, so I was exhausted.

It wasn’t until 9:15 that I laid down and closed my eyes. Ear plugs, my buff over my eyes, and I was passed out in no time.