Day 1 of the 2005 Christmas Trip Back East
Don’t worry, I’m not going to write a post on every boring thing that we did or that happens each day of this trip. I don’t have the time or energy to do all of that. I do, however, want to write about the first 24-hours of it. Of course it starts out with the frantic finishing of packing. Is this going to be confiscated it it’s in our carry-on? When is our ride going to be here? We need to eat, take out the trash, clean the dishes… Everything actually went very smoothly. We had plenty of time to get all the “last minute” stuff done, our ride arrived at the perfect time, despite the traffic on the 405 we still got the the airport in plenty of time. Check-in was a breeze. I almost don’t want to mention the hidden secret of the Long Beach Airport. It’s a tiny, tiny airport (yup, you gotta go outside and climb the stairs to board the plane), but it was so great in the crazed-airline travel days we’re living in. Security was a quick task (none of the Super Special Security Screens this year to almost make us miss our flight!), and the actual flight was great too. Jet Blue has a great airline, despite the fact that neither Kris nor I were able to truly sleep on the red-eye. We had the seats with “the most” legroom (in the exit aisle), but the seats did not recline that much. I swear that the seats used to recline WAY more. We also ended up sitting next to Kris’s old roommate Andrew, or at least someone who resembled Andrew so much we did almost think it was him (especially considering the flight went into Boston). Andrew had the window seat, which was bad because it’s the only place you can lean, but I guess it was also good that I had the aisle seat since I had to get up so many times to use the restroom.
So off the surreal flight to Boston (there was no mention of how far back we were in the queue to take off or land, the plane was suddenly in the air, and then suddenly on the ground) and into the cold. I changed out of my pjs while another woman waited for me to get out of the handicapped stall (I didn’t know she was out there!). The luggage check was quick, and then we followed signs to the rental cars. Ok, so not only was it now cold, but it was also sleeting. Yuck. We had to wait out in the drippy covered road for the Hertz bus. It took so long Kris went inside to call to make sure the bus was running. I was happy I had the umbrella handy once we got to the actual Hertz counter (also a nice smooth experience) and into the sleet to find the car. A Mazda 6 was not the car I’d envisioned us driving, but it’s what we got and it wasn’t too bad. All the Hertz cars have the “Never Lost” GPS thing inside, which we didn’t necessarily need, but was fun to play with. Got on the 93 and made a quick exit from Boston before the morning rush hour started. Our first stop was at Dunkin’ Donuts. I’ve missed it SO much (although not for the coffee, which I don’t really drink), but of course they’ve stopped making the stuff I wanted. All I ask is for a Vanilla Chai and a scone. No go. After several tries (and an irate New England Dunkies woman), I finally ended up with some breakfast sandwich and hot cocoa. Not really what I wanted. The next task was to get the rental car listed on my EZPass so we could use it to pay the tolls. It took a couple calls, but it eventually got worked out (and edit - made our whole trip even easier!). Kris drove around the area where he grew up to kill some time and show me some places we hadn’t gotten a chance to ever visit. It was so shocking to see the Dunkies on every street corner and drive down those narrow New England roads, made even narrower by the snow, once again. It makes me question if I’d really want to move back there - yay for California sun!
Our next stop was the Rockingham Mall in tax-free Salem, NH. Why shop in CA with the 10% sales tax on everything, when we’d have to find some place to pack it, and not be able to wrap it in advance anyway? We knew we’d need to kill a few hours (our flight got in at around 6 AM) anyway. It took a few extra stops, but we got about 90% of our Christmas shopping done. Time to head up to Maine and Kris’s family.
