We woke up early enough this morning to take a little bike room. So there we were in the bike room, pedaling away, thinking about what was upstairs, not getting packed. But I got in 25 miles — which was great!
This was my first ride in a week, and my last ride for a week. Meanwhile, the calendar keeps churning and my yearly mileage record is still out there, waiting to be met.
I should make it, but probably not by much.
Couldn’t do more than 25 miles today, and let me just say, he wrote, that based on how the rest of the morning and early afternoon developed, I did not have time to do 30, or even 27 miles. The day was perfectly, accidentally, plotted out.
We got cleaned up and finished packing. I loaded the car and drove us to the airport. We made it through security and down to our gate with no incident, having left the house six minutes later than we wanted, but with no stress on time.
(Let’s see if we can do that the next two or four times in a row before it’s worth really remarking on, though.)
Anyway, to Delta, and a plane that winged us away to LaGuardia Airport. Here we are flying into Queens now.
They’ve been working on LaGuardia, an $8 billion renovation, since 2016. The terminal we flew into today opened last June. And they’re now nearing the completion of this whole project. Joe Biden, then the vice president, famously said the old airport belonged to a “third-world country” and the mid-project experience was none better. But now, here we are, the airport the New York media is calling the first new major airport built in the United States in the last 25 years.
What is not be available: mass transit.
Can you believe that?
Getting to the rental car companies is no easier. Landing at Terminal C there is sometimes a shuttle to Terminal A. From Terminal A you’d have to take a second bus to the car rental people, who are off the premises. Or you could walk. It is not, repeat, not, conducive to walking. This whole design is as naively 20th century New World as can be.
We took an Uber, instead. Two, actually, because we got in the wrong car the first time.
There’s egg on my face but, hey, it’s in your car, lady, and not mine.
So we got the car and then drove toward our next stop: Pennsylvania.
At a key moment on the two-hour plus drive (about the same amount of time as the flight, I think) The Yankee noted that we have been in seven states in 36 hours. It was then that I decided to tally up our travel mileage this holiday season.
We had dinner with her god-sister’s family. We spent the evening playing card games with their daughters. It’s fun watching them grow up, and it’s a special treat to be able to spend this time with them.
This is their oldest, when she was about a year old, in 2009.
Tonight we were talking about colleges. She’s brilliant, I’m surprised we weren’t talking about graduate programs.
Both of those kids beat me up playing cards, so if that’s any indication …
