Goodbyes and Airport Adventures, as usual.

So early Sunday morning it was time to leave beautiful Seattle and Ellen's beautiful home and family.I had her sign my copy of Mennonite Girls Can Cook just before we left for the airport.


I wonder if I will ever gather more MG signatures over the years?Well, at least I got Ellen's.


With one last glance at her china hutch with a patriotic display including her son-in-law's various Marine caps, we were out the door and off to the airport again.


I am happy for the Port of Seattle being around for a full 100 years.

Not really sure what is meant by "Where a sustainable world is headed".
I can remember the very first time I heard the word "sustainable" and was asked to research and find everything I could about the concept.What I discovered gave me a five star case of the willies.I'll have to blog about that some time...it is really quite interesting to know what the sustainability movement is and from whence it sprung.
(Still gives me creepy shivers just thinking about it again...)


To get to my gate I had to catch the airport's underground train.


I watched myself go whizzing by...and decided to take a picture of myself so you could see my new/old Gladys of Seattle hat.

Chic, yes?



Then I had the oddest experience: I needed to catch the escalator up to my gate.
The red tipped arrow sign pointed at right angles to the escalators and directly at a blank wall.
I kept following the arrow's direction and just didn't see anything at the wall except the wall itself.
It sort of reminded me of the Harry Potter train station scene: Was I supposed to roll myself and my luggage straight at the wall and expect it to magically open up?
I finally found an airport host and explained my problem.
He said he had never noticed that the signs to my gate pointed at a blank wall, and I should go ahead and take the escalator up to the next level and from there I would find a way to my gate.
And I did just that, then drifted into an airport book seller shop where I became engrossed in a book, looking up at the time later only to discover that my plane was five minutes away from departure.

Running madly, I made it to the gate where an Asian flight attendant grabbed my arm and nearly threw me down the connecting tunnel to the plane.
The plane was broiling hot inside as I buckled in next to a sleepy young fellow. Frankly I was glad I hadn't boarded a full twenty minutes earlier with everybody else.
The flight attendants were repeatedly counting everyone over and over again, and then suddenly a role call was called. About fifteen people were asked to get up, and take everything with them and prepare to leave the plane.
Huh?
Then we waited a few more minutes before fifteen Korean students came on board, each smelling strongly of kimchee.
(A garlic-y fragrance that was not particularly appealing...)

Another round of nose counting and a hot headed flight attendant chewing out someone for not having ice included in the kitchen delivery and then WHOOSH we were off.

This time I had an aisle seat, no nice farewell view of Mt. Rainer this time.
Instead I buried my nose in a nice cowboy romance novel that I found in the bathroom (it was a paperback library book; I'll get it back to the library on time, promise) and in one hour and twenty minutes I was back to life as usual in Utah.

Only now I had new memories of lavender fields and a special friendship added to my life.