Wow! What happened? I woke up before the alarm triggered and am rested. Then, it dawned on me we leave at 12:30pm (In the daylight). Why, over the years when we traveled have we not experienced the awakening without the air-sirens at 4:30am?
Never were we this prepared. We had 3 hours before the Lyft guy arrived, so we could finish all the tasks we gave up on the night before. And there it was, suitcases on the doorstep, the Lyft man pulls up, and off we go ON TIME! It never happens I say.
However, at the airport, it looked a bit sketchy. Cars were double-parked at the curb as we pulled in. This is Boise--one should only expect 4 cars and a pull-cart at the worst. Could this be the "Ugly" in our day? Horrendous lines stretching out to the tarmack? Little-Leagers peppered throughout the lines attempting to fill out their luggage tags? Interestingy, walking in, the ticket-line was virtually empty. Hmmm, what about that? We suantered up all Kardasian-like, and handly got our (1) bag checked through to Atlanta. We walked off "Well, that was easy. What gives?". Then we saw it. The security line was backed-up and cattle-guarded for what must've been 75 feet. Yikes! Now to backup about nine days ago when Sandra said "Hey, let's subscribe to TSA PreCheck. Sometime in the future this could come in handy". Now, back to the present. "Hey Sandra, aren't you glad I made us get the TSA Pre-Check". I don't think she heard me, so I moved on. Past the hords of grumpy people to the TSA PreCheck. Ten people ahead of us? I can live with that. Afterall, we paid big money to travel with our betters.
The flight was smooth. Crunchy tunes at the ready, and was able to pop the ole computer out to scribble a few lines of code.
Next thing you know...we're landing.
Arriving in Atlanta on the direct flight was terrific. Long forgotten was the usual rushed layover in Denver or Housten where we would either be panic running for the next gate, or delayed until our spirit was sucked out like a shop-vac on high.
But here we were. And it was all like Clockwork. Rental car--no paperwork. I think the most time we spent on the trip at this point was choosing which car to checkout. Hertz rental cars have evolved to where you just walk up and drive away with any car. Felt criminal to me. But, that's exactly what we did. Next thing you know, we're driving down the freeway with no traffic, in a car I hope wasn't one of the employees brand new Chevy Maliboo.
Something was strange on the way to Athens. I looked down, and "Yes!". We're crusing at 70mph. Where are all the cars? Apparently, our arrival put us into Atlanta around the time all the folks are already at home and into their second Chardonnay. So we just kept crusing uninterrupted toward our VRBO (Stress level: still near zero).
Once we arrived, we got the walkthrough with the owners. The VRBO was a daylight basement over their residence. But this daylight basement was tricked out with a full kitchen, an 80" TV, and all the "Go Dawgs" decoration one could ever hope to accumulate in a lifetime. You might say, we found our dopplegangers on the east coast.
We slept...