After waking up at 3 am running through the list of things left to do before we depart, I was able fall back asleep and be woken by my alarm at the usual 6:05 am time. Fed the cat, fed the humans. Checked the house for any last minute things to shut off or notes to leave for the cat sitters. Then it time to pack up the car and hit the road.

We were aiming to arrive by 9:30 am, but forgot to account for morning rush hour traffic. Luckily, the carpool lanes served to be our saving grace and we ended up flying past miles of backed up traffic arriving at our destination 10 minutes early.

We parked the car and got a ride from our friends house to the airport. I was very quickly overwhelmed by the number of people in the terminals. I hadn’t been around crowds like this since before the pandemic, but I reminded myself to keep my faith in my vaccine and my mask. We checked in our bags and I had Jacob put the tags on them. I have a history of ripping the tags or mangling them and I really wanted to make sure my clothes arrived in LA.

Dropping our bags off was pretty easy after the computer systems woke up and they were able to a scan our tags. From there we walked to the TSA precheck line only to realize we hadn’t registered our Nexus cards to our Alaska account so we couldn’t use that lane. Luckily the general screening line was moving pretty quickly. I had the honor of having my bag checked and then we were on our way. Next step, being crammed into a train to take us to terminal N. Jacob said he thought I was going to bust through the window when someone in the train coughed. I only considered it.

We arrived to our gate with about a half hour to spare and used that time to visit the restrooms and have a quick snack.

When we booked our tickets we decided to fly first class using a voucher I had received when a previous flight had been canceled in the before times. It was so nice to board early and have big comfy seats.

My family also flew first class out of Portland and my nephew said it was the best part of his day. Our flight was uneventful. I read my book and Jacob watched a movie. We did get fresh baked cookies. That was enough to convince me that first class is worth it.

Since our plane had left a little late, due to three tuggers failing to pull our plane away from our gate, we arrived a little late to LAX. Once we were off the plane you could tell we were not in Seattle anymore. The crowds, the stylish people not decked out in plaid and birkenstocks…

We arrived at baggage claim much too early and waited and waited for our bags. When they finally arrived down the metal slide, we gathered them up and headed out the door to locate the shuttle to our rental car.

We found the shuttle with ease but unfortunately hopped off too early and ended up at the wrong place. A quick 15 minute walk around the block had us in the right spot. We both commented on how it was weird to not see anyone else walking around. In fact we hardly saw anyone but one man with his rainbow bus he lived in.

After another 20 minutes of waiting, we finally had our ride and were on the road. Unfortunately the delay meant we would be driving right into the heart of rush hour. It took us an hour and a half to get 35 miles.

It was all worth it though because when we arrived at our AirBnB, we were greeted by my nephew who quickly unloaded the car for us. The house is absolutely beautiful and I can’t wait to spend time here over the next few days.

Tomorrow we are off to California Adventure! I can’t wait!

Until then!