Return to Reno
After waking up around 4 AM ET (1 AM PT), I had a very busy morning in Montreal with the Day Jobbe, which I may or may not write about later in a friends-list post, but not tonight. I got out of the hotel room and over to the Metro station slower than I originally had hoped, and there was a delay on the Metro, but the 747 bus to the airport runs at regular and short intervals, so I in the end was less than 30 minutes later to the airport than I expected. I was glad of that because it meant they were only just starting to check in people for my American Airlines flight to Chicago O'Hare, and given how heavily I was traveling, I was delighted to be able to mostly stay out of other people's way.
Because I'm now carrying a bunch of stuff for the Winnipeg Worldcon bid in my luggage, I had to take my CPAP machine out of my luggage and take it as a third carry-on. That's permitted (medical equipment), but it's a hassle, because it has to be taken out and run through the scanner separately just like a laptop computer. And I'm carrying three laptops (two for the Day Jobbe). So Terrorization is a big palaver. On top of that, the body scanner didn't like me even after two tries, so they had to pat me down. I don't know why. There wasn't anything on me that should have set it off. In any event, I made it through.
Immigration was no big deal. I answered honestly that I'd been attending the World Fantasy Convention, which startled the Immigration guy, but only because one of the other TSA people in the next booth is apparently into comics and other such. I explained what the convention was, and was careful to make it clear that this is a hobby, not my job.
I had an errand in Duty Free, where my 1 litre liquor allowance was requisitioned to buy a bottle of a particular type of gin to be served at the Winnipeg party at Loscon/Westercon in a few weeks. (Yet more weight to haul around all day, but I'm happy to help the bid.)
What surprised me about the Immigration & Customs stuff was that there was nothing about Customs. I wasn't given a declaration card. I had been keeping track of what to declare (everything, including the bottle of gin, was within my allowance), but nobody asked for anything. I just went right on through.
Getting through so early meant I had time to sit down and have breakfast at my leisure with plenty of time before my flight boarded. The equipment on the first leg of the trip was a Bombardier CRJ-700, a plane with which I was familiar from all of the north-south trips I used to take on Alaska/Horizon. American Eagle/Skywest fly this plane with a "business class," which is 1-2 wider seating, and my ticket included one of the singletons, which was just fine by me.
O'Hare was a relatively unpleasant experience. This was, I think, the first time I've ever transited that airport on any airline other than United, although I doubt that would have made a difference. The terminal was jammed with people, many of whom appear to consider mask restrictions to be a joke. I did my best to avoid them. The AA flight to Seattle was in coach, and I was among the last to board. I felt fortunate to find room to store my computer bag and CPAP in an overhead compartment. I had to ask the person who boarded near the end, filling the middle seat in my row of three, to pull his mask up over his nose.
At the last minute, my good luck on seats came back. A flight attendant offered to move me to an empty window seat in a row with an empty middle, "But you have to do it right now," as the door was about to close.
"You don't have to ask me twice," I said, grabbing my tote bag and moving up. The person on the aisle was good about wearing his mask properly. I tried to get some sleep and might have dozed fitfully at times on the roughly five hour flight. It certainly was more comfortable than if I'd been next to the unmasked wonder.
At Seattle, I had two hours. After calling Lisa (who was tracking my flights online during this trip), I went to the food court. Not only was it too full to suit me, but I see that Ivar's did lose their attempt to keep a stall in the airport. Then I remembered that as I had a first-class ticket on Alaska for the final leg of the trip to Reno, I could use the Alaska Lounge. I headed off to the North Satellite, where there is a large Alaska Airlines lounge not far from where my flight would be departing later. I mused about having been on two rubber-tired fixed-guideway transit systems today: the Montreal Metro and the Sea-Tac inter-terminal transit.
The Alaska Lounge was very nice; so much so that I sort of wish I'd had a longer layover there. Lots of space to stay distanced, and they had food, so I was able to get dinner. I had my fill and set out to the gate, where my flight was already boarding. I was in an aisle seat in row 2. My row-mate kept his mask in place except when drinking, as did I.
Our flight was delayed for a rather prosaic reason: they had to wait for the toilets to be pumped out before we could leave. Other than that, it was an uneventful flight, which was just fine by me.
Getting to Reno, I called Lisa to confirm that I was off the plane, and while I was talking to her, my bags showed up on the claim belt, so I bade her goodnight and walked out to the parking lot (that's how close the $10/day "long term" lot is to the terminal - no waiting for shuttle buses). I made one stop at a convenience store near the airport before heading for the Holiday Inn Express.
IHG has extended my Spire status again because of COVID, and even though I'm staying here tonight on points, they upgraded me to a mini-suite. I also asked for and received a 2 PM late check-out. Although I'll still have to be up in a few hours to do a little bit of Day Jobbery, I can then go back to bed and sleep a few more hours if I want to so before heading home this afternoon.
And that's about it. I've now been up for about 24 hours, so I think it's time to fall into bed and get a few hours of sleep, which was the point of staying in an airport-area hotel after this trip, after all.
Because I'm now carrying a bunch of stuff for the Winnipeg Worldcon bid in my luggage, I had to take my CPAP machine out of my luggage and take it as a third carry-on. That's permitted (medical equipment), but it's a hassle, because it has to be taken out and run through the scanner separately just like a laptop computer. And I'm carrying three laptops (two for the Day Jobbe). So Terrorization is a big palaver. On top of that, the body scanner didn't like me even after two tries, so they had to pat me down. I don't know why. There wasn't anything on me that should have set it off. In any event, I made it through.
Immigration was no big deal. I answered honestly that I'd been attending the World Fantasy Convention, which startled the Immigration guy, but only because one of the other TSA people in the next booth is apparently into comics and other such. I explained what the convention was, and was careful to make it clear that this is a hobby, not my job.
I had an errand in Duty Free, where my 1 litre liquor allowance was requisitioned to buy a bottle of a particular type of gin to be served at the Winnipeg party at Loscon/Westercon in a few weeks. (Yet more weight to haul around all day, but I'm happy to help the bid.)
What surprised me about the Immigration & Customs stuff was that there was nothing about Customs. I wasn't given a declaration card. I had been keeping track of what to declare (everything, including the bottle of gin, was within my allowance), but nobody asked for anything. I just went right on through.
Getting through so early meant I had time to sit down and have breakfast at my leisure with plenty of time before my flight boarded. The equipment on the first leg of the trip was a Bombardier CRJ-700, a plane with which I was familiar from all of the north-south trips I used to take on Alaska/Horizon. American Eagle/Skywest fly this plane with a "business class," which is 1-2 wider seating, and my ticket included one of the singletons, which was just fine by me.
O'Hare was a relatively unpleasant experience. This was, I think, the first time I've ever transited that airport on any airline other than United, although I doubt that would have made a difference. The terminal was jammed with people, many of whom appear to consider mask restrictions to be a joke. I did my best to avoid them. The AA flight to Seattle was in coach, and I was among the last to board. I felt fortunate to find room to store my computer bag and CPAP in an overhead compartment. I had to ask the person who boarded near the end, filling the middle seat in my row of three, to pull his mask up over his nose.
At the last minute, my good luck on seats came back. A flight attendant offered to move me to an empty window seat in a row with an empty middle, "But you have to do it right now," as the door was about to close.
"You don't have to ask me twice," I said, grabbing my tote bag and moving up. The person on the aisle was good about wearing his mask properly. I tried to get some sleep and might have dozed fitfully at times on the roughly five hour flight. It certainly was more comfortable than if I'd been next to the unmasked wonder.
At Seattle, I had two hours. After calling Lisa (who was tracking my flights online during this trip), I went to the food court. Not only was it too full to suit me, but I see that Ivar's did lose their attempt to keep a stall in the airport. Then I remembered that as I had a first-class ticket on Alaska for the final leg of the trip to Reno, I could use the Alaska Lounge. I headed off to the North Satellite, where there is a large Alaska Airlines lounge not far from where my flight would be departing later. I mused about having been on two rubber-tired fixed-guideway transit systems today: the Montreal Metro and the Sea-Tac inter-terminal transit.
The Alaska Lounge was very nice; so much so that I sort of wish I'd had a longer layover there. Lots of space to stay distanced, and they had food, so I was able to get dinner. I had my fill and set out to the gate, where my flight was already boarding. I was in an aisle seat in row 2. My row-mate kept his mask in place except when drinking, as did I.
Our flight was delayed for a rather prosaic reason: they had to wait for the toilets to be pumped out before we could leave. Other than that, it was an uneventful flight, which was just fine by me.
Getting to Reno, I called Lisa to confirm that I was off the plane, and while I was talking to her, my bags showed up on the claim belt, so I bade her goodnight and walked out to the parking lot (that's how close the $10/day "long term" lot is to the terminal - no waiting for shuttle buses). I made one stop at a convenience store near the airport before heading for the Holiday Inn Express.
IHG has extended my Spire status again because of COVID, and even though I'm staying here tonight on points, they upgraded me to a mini-suite. I also asked for and received a 2 PM late check-out. Although I'll still have to be up in a few hours to do a little bit of Day Jobbery, I can then go back to bed and sleep a few more hours if I want to so before heading home this afternoon.
And that's about it. I've now been up for about 24 hours, so I think it's time to fall into bed and get a few hours of sleep, which was the point of staying in an airport-area hotel after this trip, after all.