I had the alarm all set for 6AM, so naturally I slept until almost 7. Oops. This was followed by some very frantic last minute packing and trying to squeeze things into my bags (most of them packed around 1AM last night). Then we were off in the general direction of the San Jose airport. Us being tight on time, this was the perfect moment for CalTrans to shut down the onramp from 92 to 101 south. Cue complaints and 5 minutes of trying to figure out how to get onto 92 West in Foster City.

Somehow though, I did arrived at the airport, got to the right terminal, and checked in my baggage. The interminable security line terminated after only 15 minutes, so I said goodbye to Dad, and flitted through, arriving at the gate just as boarding commenced. This being Southwest (first-come first-serve seating) I was afraid of getting stuck in a bad spot, but instead I had an aisle seat near the back. The 4 hour flight to Chicago was hard to measure as my only time-keeping device, my cell-phone, had to be kept off. The rather talkative couple next to me, from rural Wisconsin (though originally from near San Jose) kept me engaged when the iPod, the book or the Sudoku game on the back of the lunch packet failed.

My stopover in Chicago’s Midway airport was pretty short. I nearly managed to board a flight to Durham North Carolina by accident, which was slightly disturbing. The plane I was supposed to take actually ended up being a bit latish, so I had a nice long stand in the line, eating bits of the lunch I’d brought on the plane from home. On the less than two hour flight to Islip (Long Island), I almost fell asleep quite a number of times, and so arrived in New York around 7:30PM still a bit groggy.

Grandma and Grandpa were at the airport to pick me up, which was nice. My checked in baggage, however was not. Nor could the folks at the airport tell me where it was, or what had happened to it. Nonetheless, the fact that half-a-dozen other folks were having the same problem was encouraging.

Driving back to Westchester from Islip was lengthy, but pretty quick. The Cross Island Parkway, notorious for its miserable traffic, was moving nicely in the 75-80 mph range. Back at my grandparent’s place, we had dinner before, with no difficulty whatsoever, I went to sleep around midnight local time.