Month: July 2013

Our Marriott Courtyard hotel is in Layton, between Salt Lake City and Ogden.  It’s on Antelope Drive.  We leave the hotel too early to get breakfast or even coffee in the morning, so we checked out the Starbuckses closest to the hotel.  The two green balloons at the top right is where we are, on Antelope Avenue.  That’s when I noticed there is an Antelope Island in the Salt Lake; turns out the whole island is a State Park.  So now I have to find time to drive out there on the water with that ‘Syracuse’ road to go and check it out. Google Maps is always there to provide a preview, of course (and spoil the fun of discovering it for real a little bit. We live in the information age and nothing seems to be completely hidden away anymore!).

It is 6 am on Monday morning at Sea-Tac airport and I am in the ‘Sky Priority’ lane to try to get in ahead of my fellow passengers.

How did I get to be a Delta ‘Sky Priority’ Platinum member, since I have flown mostly on United the prior year?  Well, you apply for a ‘status match’ with your new airline. Your new ‘preferred’ airline grants you a temporary elite status* match for three months to see if you are actually bringing them enough flying to justify your temporary status.  (If you don’t, your elite status disappears and you have to earn it the hard way with a full year of flying enough miles). So while my new Delta Platinum status did not get me upgraded to the luxe first class seats this Monday, it did help me get out of the middle seat in the back of the airplane to a seat further up to the front on the aisle, and with more legroom.

*Please don’t be too jealous of my ‘elite’ flying status.  All it means is that I fly a lot, and that I sometimes Iuck out and sit in front of the plane !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took a walk late Sunday afternoon and then had to pack since I’m heading out to the ‘salt mine’ in Salt Lake City again in the morning.  I am pressing a new suitcase into service that I have actually had for a long time, bought it at a sale. Part of the reason for the new suitcase is that I had a melt-down in my suitcase last Thursday while the rental car was parked in the sun all day with our luggage.  I tucked a whole slab of chocolate into the side of the suitcase – and of course it was no match for the inferno in the car’s trunk.  It liquefied and stained several items of clothing.  (I got most of the stains out to my surprise. I used club soda to rinse it, scrubbed it as best I could, and then used Tide detergent and my washing machine’s ‘extra hot’ sanitary cycle).

Monday/ Correction re: chalkboard : it’s Montana.  I said Washington State. Thanks to Bryan for pointing that out.  I was not paying attention! There is no jagged Puget Sound coastline in this outline.

The Marriott Courtyard hotel where we will come to and stay in for the next several weeks from Monday to Thursday is comfortable.  I finally got used to the noise of the air-conditioner in the room as well.   I set it at 74°F (23 °C), but even then it turns on and runs frequently.  The day temperatures have come down from Monday’s extreme highs to the low 90s (33 °C).

Monday saw 107°F (42°C) where we work out in the deserty area by the Great Salt Lake, reported my colleagues when I met them at the hotel on Monday night.  A very far cry from the opposite extreme of -8°F (-22°C) when I was here in the dead of winter! Today (Tuesday) was a little less scorching, but the mountains were still shimmering in the heat, not high enough to carry any snow at all at this time of year.

It is mid-morning on Monday and I am sitting in the South Terminal of Seattle airport, with very clean teeth. (Fresh from the dentist at 7.30 am this morning to get my chompers cleaned).  I see it’s going to hit 97°F (36°C) in Salt Lake City today.  I hope I don’t melt or get toasted too badly out there – the weather in Seattle has not been anywhere near that, for the most part this summer.  It starts out most mornings at 55°F (13°C), with a high of 75°F (24°C).

 

We made it!  We had more than three hours at Heathrow’s Termical 5 before the flight back to Seattle -but the experience at Heathrow was a good one.  Everything works well and the security check point was efficient and not nearly as onerous as the ones here in the States.  After arriving at Seattle airport, it took more than an hour to get through passport control at US Customs.  And there was more waiting at the taxi stands : the lines were very long.  So we opted for the light rail train from the airport to Mount Baker station where our friend Steve came to pick us up.  Thanks Steve!