Flying south with the geese.......

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7:07 am (PCT) - Riverside, CA - Friday - October 6th - 59º F, humidity 40%, wind 3 mph out of northeast......clear blue skies with a forecast high of 97º F!  Sitting here at the Civic Center Marriott in Riverside, CA composing today's missive.

Our flight out of Billings, MT was at 1:30 pm so since we had a 120 mile drive to the airport we left a little after 9 am to be sure that even if 'Murhpy's Law' attempted to intervene we might have time to recover from his efforts.  Trying to figure out what to wear for a flight which originates in, what seems to be, the polar regions, and terminates in SoCal where it was forecast to be in the 90's is challenging.  I opted to wear my cargo shorts, long sleeve Under Armor shirt, socks, shoes, and a flannel shirt.  I added a short sleeve t-shirt to my carry on bag to change into when we hit SoCal.

We arrived at Logan International Airport, unscathed by Mr. Murphy, around 11:15 which gave us over two hours until our flight departed......perfect.  By the time we checked in, got our boarding passes, and passed through the TSA security station it was closing in on noon so we both purchased salads for lunch.  Soon we were hearing the call to begin boarding our flight south to Denver, CO and shortly after that we were hurtling southward at 30,000+ feet.  Our scheduled landing time in Denver was about 2:40 pm, and our connecting flight to John Wayne International Airport in SoCal began boarding around 3:15, so we had, as they say, a tight connection.  The United Airlines flight attendants knew there were about 20 folks on our flight (including ourselves) with very tight connections so upon landing they requested that we all be allowed to deplane first......very, very nice.  We had to essentially cover about one half of the entire concourse to get to gate B49, but we made it with a few minutes to spare, even with a quick bathroom stop along the way.......

Waiting in the 'Group 5' economy lane to board our second flight of the day....I've already shed my flannel shirt

........we arrived in time to get in boarding 'Group 5', and within minutes we were on board for second leg of our journey to SoCal.  This flight had TV screens for DirecTV, so I paid my $5.99 to watch the Boston Red Sox play the Houston Astros in the first game of their 'Best of 5' series.......

.......between that and keeping up with social media on my Samsung Note 5 phone the time passed quickly.  We actually arrived at John Wayne International about 20 minutes early (4:45 pm).  Of course, for anyone who is familiar with SoCal knows that this is right in the middle of the afternoon 'Rush Hour', so we were not optimistic about how long it would take us to drive up to our son's home in Ontario, CA.  Nonetheless, whilst I retrieved our luggage TLE secured our reserved rental car from the Alamo desk, then returned to wait with me for the tardy luggage to arrived at baggage claim #4.  After about 35 minutes it came down the conveyor belt, and we were off......we were merging on to the Newport Freeway (55) about 5:30 pm in bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic.  We estimated it would take us 2 hours to cover the 40+ miles to Ontario.......it's nice to be wrong about something like this once and a while.  Even with the terrible rush hour traffic we managed to arrived at my son's home in one hour and 20 minutes......not too bad!

Tim and Laila (Tim's fiance) graciously hosted a dinner for us with my daughter, Kate, and her family (Nick, Charlie and Jolene), who live in the same neighborhood.  What a wonderful time we had.....many, many hugs were exchanged.......

.......by 9 pm TLE and I were 'toast' from a long day of traveling so we bid adieu to our kids and headed out to Riverside (about 13 miles away) to check into the Marriott for the night.  We were in our room by 9:30 relaxing and thinking about all the fun we will have the next few days......caught this great view of the morning moon over Mt. Rubidoux this morning.....

....so that was our Thursday......time to get dressed and live Friday!

Thanks for stopping by!

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