Road Trip: Ohio. Again.
Day 1: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 - Travel to Des Moines, IA
Day's statistics:
Weather: mid 70s
Steps: Steve 13,259; Linda 5,137
Travel: ~1,654 miles
Linda had to work at the church so I dropped her off in the morning.
While she worked the day, I went home and finished packing and doing the things to prep the house for the trip.
At 1:30, I left to pick her up - luggage in the trunk - and stopped by the local Italian restaurant to pick up our
Italian sub - with lettuce, tomato, black olives, and hot peppers - for dinner.
We headed to the ExpressPark South lot, parked, and the shuttle took us to the airport.
We had to pay $30 each for a checked bag, and Linda's weighed 31 pounds, and mine weighed 36 pounds.
We had our tickets by 2:49, and by 2:58, we were through security.
On the way to the gate, we passed by this work of art, Hypnagogic Habitat by Rachel Blytheudell.
We found our departure gate - the first gate - and sat to await our 5:30 flight. When we got to the gate -
more than two hours early - there were already ten others waiting too.
We didn't eat our sandwich right away, but played Spelling Bee and other games on our phones, read the news,
and looked out the window at the goings-on. And that's when I saw these two guys (the same guy in two, and
just one for the other guy) - they either can't read, or like to live on the edge knowing they could get run
over by luggage trams at any time.
The top of the sign clearly reads "VEHICLE ENTRANCE ONLY" and the lower sentence, less visible in this image (it
was taken with the phone, not the camera) is "PEDESTRIANS PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR" - which is the gray door ten feet
to the right and is labeled "PEDESTRIANS" in white letters.
The flight was still on time.
The plane arrived at 4:40. But people had to deplane, and it had to be sanitized.
At about 4:30 we ate our sub.
At 4:55 passengers started to board, at 5:08 we boarded and were in our seats at 5:12.
At 5:32 we started moving, and for the next 25 minutes we moved and taxied until we finally took off at 5:57.
Not long after being airborn, we spotted Frawley Stadium in Wilmington, and the Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey,
with our house somewhere near (though we can't see it from our house).
At 6:20, service started. We shared a coffee and a water, and each had biscuits (no picture).
At 6:40, they already announced we were starting our descent into Charlotte. On the way down, we passed over a rather
large lake with quite a few islands in it, and a few large waterfront homes (indistinguishable in the picture).
We landed at 7:03, taxied until 7:14, and deplaned at 7:26.
We had about an hour and a half layover in Charlotte. We didn't have to get our luggage - the airline would
take care of that - but we did have to find our next plane.
We had a little bit of a walk, but it wasn't that bad. We also passed this interesting sculpture.
Since we still had a few hours ahead of us before we would get to sleep, we picked up a Starbucks® in the airport.
Of ccourse, we had to check the toteboard to make sure our plane was on-time, and it was.
For some reason, this collection of geniuses boarding their flight felt it was better to line up smack in the
hallway area, rather than line up along the side.
Passengers started boarding at 8:26, and we started at 8:28. Just after getting on the plane, we stood while someone
in first class tried to straighten out an issue with their luggage. I asked the flight attendant if I could take this
picture and he said "sure" (I have no idea who the guy in the cockpit is).
We sat at 8:35.
We started moving at 8:49, and taxied and sat until 9:11 when we took off.
At 10:00 ET we had a snack of pretzels and water.
At 10:40 ET, we started our descent. I captured these on the way down.
We also grabbed a selfie.
We landed at 10:58 ET. As soon as we had clearance, I called Avis to see what time the rental counter closed -
it was 11:00 CT (Central Time, aka local time), so we had plenty of time.
We deplaned at 10:15 CT and made our way to baggage claim. Along the way, we came across a shop that sold t-shirts,
and one of them was printed with "Des Moines, it's French for The Moines".
This sculpture was hanging from the ceiling near the car rental counters.
We picked up our bags at 10:22, and were on line at the rental counter at 10:24 - as it was next to the baggage claim.
Avis over-booked the economy car class, so we were granted a free upgrade to a mid-size SUV. Some may think "hey, that's
great!" but we didn't. While the vehicle itself was assumedly nicer - it was a 2021 Toyota Highlander LE AWD - than
our economy class would have been, we were concerned about the fuel economy. We guesstimate we were going to drive 1,500
miles - it turned out to be more - and didn't want to pay that much more for gas (in the end, we wound up spending almost
$100 more in fuel than we possibly would have had we been driving a 35 MPG econocar rather than the 24 mpg SUV).
We were told at the counter that we could swap the SUV for an economy class after 8:00 in the morning. We said that was
fine and headed to the car (I'll call it that) to go the hotel.
The car didn't have NAV so we used our phone to map the Super 8. It was only about 20 minutes away.
At 10:58 we arrived, checked in, prepped for bed, and drifted off to sleep.
Because we traversed one time zone, it was 11:00 local time, but really 12:00 to our bodies.