I left home yesterday at around 515p and headed to the airport for work. This will be my second trip since the early part of January. Between scheduling, bereavement leave, trips bought for training, and a little luck I've been very fortunate.
I've finally come into the 21st century. I bought 6 smartphones for the family. With my traveling a smartphone is almost a necessity. I've typically purchased my internet through Boingo and written that off as a need item. Getting stuck in an airport for hours on end is bad enough. Trying to plan travel and find the best option home it's life and death. So with this upgrade I'm looking forward to having some better quality pics to display here.
Quiet trip to the crashpad, I got there around 9 pm and only had to share the room with 1 other guy. I was back at the airport by 715a this morning. I didn't
need to be there until closer to 8, but I had some things that I had to get done, like check my mailbox and download and revue the paperwork before the flight. My flight today took me to the place that I was daydreaming about while I shoveling snow this week. I was heading back to the 85 degree temps of Aruba for the longest layover of the trip.
We got all loaded up on time and were pushed out early. Once we started to taxi out to the runway ground control told us that we were going to be held for restrictions over our departure gate. They didn't tell us why, but I suspect that it was simply flow for congestion heading south from the New York area. Our flight plan had a 20 minute taxi time added into it and even with that we were supposed to get in 8 minutes early. However, our delay was somewhere closer to 40 minutes. Once we got off and out and up to altitude we took a look at how much fuel we had, how much time we could make up and then figured how fast we should be able to fly. The plane and planning paperwork gives us good information to be able to make a good decision. I was flying and the company is really pushing to get to the destination on time. I pushed it up as far as we felt comfortable going. There weren't any slowdowns or delays. Our route took us down the east coast to the Norfolk area then out over the Atlantic. From there straight south and over the Dominican Republic and then to Aruba. Just to show how tight and how every minute matters I was able to make up the time that we needed, and the Captain parked the plane at the gate right on the minute of the planned arrival time. So let me pause for a minute to pat myself on the back.
My room today is stunning. I think our normal hotel is full so they put us up across the street at the Ocean Suites here. My room is a suite with a balcony that looks out over the pool and ocean. It could be the Carribean, but I'm just going to call it ocean today.
The Captain and I took the ferry over to the island and enjoyed some food and beverage. They were getting ready to have a wedding over there. I really wish that I'd been able to do something like that. The Mrs. and I got married on the beach in Florida. It was very small, we did everything ourselves and rented a house for the wedding party and family to stay in for the week. I just with looking back that we could have really done something cool like this.
I'm here until just after noon tomorrow when I'll head back to reality with a flight and layover in Chicago. It will be a short layover there, so I won't even leave the airport, with an early get up the following day. Today was really the only day to sit back and enjoy life. Everything else is set up to get ready for the last leg, a red-eye from Los Angeles back to Newark, that will be coming off of a 12 hr, dayover rest period. I'll have to figure out how to get my sleep in the daytime for that leg.