This plan was hatched out of a chat we were having after just having made plans to go to Chicago at the end of September (9/30 thru 10/3). I don't remember the exact conversation or what brought it up, but either way, we were headed to NYC in the very near future.
We knew that one of our twitter friends @zeewriter is a local and we were talking to her about going, and what she thought were some of the "must see" attractions. She was gracious enough to offer to be our "host" as it were. As it turned out we couldn't have asked for a better guide! :)
We were also planning on meeting @Kennedy_Carter while we were there, but as circumstances have it, that's the weekend that his boyfriend decided to take him to Puerto Rico. Lucky man. So meeting him was not in the cards for us that weekend. *shrugs*, oh well. Some other time...
So I get up on Thursday 6/9 - do my normal routine of going to work and when I got home I did last minute packing and freaking out. I had a midnight flight - flying out of DIA at 11:59pm. Anybody who knows me knows that I am deathly afraid of flying. Afterall, planes DO crash, ya know! So, I made my husband take me through the airport to get my luggage checked and had him stay with me for as long as he possibly could through the security line until he finally pried himself away from me, leaving me alone in the big scary airport. Before this flight I hadn't been on a plane since 1999, before 9/11 and the restrictions put on security, and with the recent additional restrictions of the TSA I wasn't sure what I was afraid of more, the actual flight or getting past TSA and not going to TSA jail. So, like a good little flyer, I took the guidelines to heart and got to the airport at 10pm so as to have my 2 hour window that, in reality I didn't need, which my husband tried to tell me, but I would not listen. (Next time I will listen! LOL)
Once he left me to my own devices in the security line, I went to the part of the line where they look at the boarding pass to make sure you are who you say you are and then to the part where you have to take off your shoes, jewelry and belts. Once I walked through the little scanner thing, lifted my arms, turned and twisted like they askes, yes, low and behold, I get pulled aside for a "general pat down" as they called it. As luck would have it, I had to wait for a female to come over to do the pat down because in my line all they had there at that time was a male. At this point I'm kind of freaking out a little bit because I know I have nothing on me that should have triggered the pat down, and I'm already nervous as it is. Well, the female TSA agent comes over and asks one question - Do I have a belt on? Nope, didn't even wear a belt. The "general pat down" was just that - they barely touched me as the skimmed past my breast area, waist and thighs. Trust me, I can't tell you how I know this, but cops do a more thorough job. ;)
So I'm off to find my terminal. Remember this is DIA, the most ridiulously large airport on the planet I think. I'm at one end and the terminal is on the other. I had to take 2 shutttle trains and ride 4 of the little walking escalators to get to my terminal.
I finally get there and look at my watch. 10:30pm. I still have over an hour and 15 minutes before we board, but am too nervous to wander anywhere further than the restroom which is right around the corner from where I was sitting. As I'm sitting there, I am looking around and wondering what is going on. Not even kidding, I was the youngest person in this waiting area by at least 20 years, and in some cases by 40. I was always under the assumption that the elderly should be in bed at midnight, not taking a red-eye flight to NYC. LOL
To pass my time and try not to freak out too much about the empending flight, I decided to tweet some. Nobody believed me that I was on the geriatric flight, so I had to take a pic of one of the passengers as he was checking in. Not even kidding this was about the average age, with the exception of me on this flight. Which from the looks of it I'm about 40, maybe 50 years younger than this gentleman. :)
After getting a lot of advice about calming my nerves and having a lot of fun by tweeting to pass the time to calm my nerves before boarding the time passed rather quickly and before I knew it, it was time to board.
I found my seat relatively easy since it was the very last aisle seat at the back of the plane, but that actually bode well for me. Closer to the booze so I was the first to get my inflight drink almost as soon as we took off. Before the plane took off though I was looking at the flight attendant and she must have seen the terror in my eyes. She came and asked me if everything was okay and if she could get me anything. I told her some tequila would be awesome but unfortunately, they didn't have that, so she said she would bring me something as soon as we were in the air and at cruising level. About 15 minutes later she brought me out 2 little shooter bottles of rum and a coke. Once I drank them, I got my kindle out, and read the entire flight. Not a bad way to get to NYC despite being so terrified. The rum calmed my nerves enough that I was able to relax and enjoy the flight even though I couldn't sleep. 3 and a half hours later I was in The Big Apple!
Part 2 - Getting off the plane and meeting @zeewriter!
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