San Francisco

September 17, 2019

Rachael and I are thrilled to be here in the San Francisco airport, filling in a few hours waiting for the departure of our next flight, to Dublin. This is partly because we’ve just finished maybe the best airport restaurant meal we’ve ever had (Rachael says there’s no question about this in her mind): a quality but reasonably priced Italian meal at the airport’s outlet of 1300 on Fillmore. I haven’t been in SFO in many years, but I’m really impressed - attractive facilities, well organized, a good selection of eating choices, excellent WiFi. It reminds me a bit of PDX, which I’m sure must be the best airport in the world.

We’d have been excited about this meal even if we weren’t in an airport. Rachael had a wonderful salmon dish with cannelli beans for a very low price.

But that’s a pretty trivial thing, really. The big reason we’re so upbeat is that WE’RE NOT MISSING OUR CONNECTION! We’ve been deeply anxious about this ever since Rachael uncovered the unhappy news that SFO is in the middle of a month-long major renovation project, and many of the arrivals and departures are significantly behind schedule. Our connections, both here and in Dublin, were uncomfortably tight as it was. We’ve been anticipating a possible layover day here in SFO because we feared missing our flight to Dublin, the only one scheduled for today. Beyond that, we feared also missing the connection in Dublin too if the departure from SFO is delayed. We’ve been mentally preparing ourselves for losing one or even two days of our tour to airport layovers.

With this in mind, we decided this morning to head out to the airport several hours early to see if we could get rebooked for an earlier departure. And it worked! We got onto an earlier flight and left PDX two hours sooner than planned; and even thought our flight was a half hour late in arrival, that still left us plenty of time to make our next connection. And a good thing too - we see on the arrivals board that the flight we would have arrived on is over an hour late. We surely would have been stranded for the night here.

Yay, Rocky!! Without her obsessive attention to the flight timeline, we’d be pretty unhappy right now.

And, we’re pretty happy about one more thing. It was pouring this morning in Portland, and grey all the way down the coast until we neared the Bay Area. It feels like we’ve maximized the season in Portland and are leaving town at the perfect time.

I dont care what United claims to the contrary. The skies look decidedly unfriendly when we leave Portland today.

And, finally, we’re pleased about the experience flying into the Bay Area today. It’s a clear day, I have a window seat, and I’m a bit stunned by how how beautiful the Bay is from above. One of the most striking flight arrivals I can recall.

Good start. Next stop, Dublin!

SFO even has comfortable recharging/work stations. We have a new second favorite airport!

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Jen RahnHere's to a great start to the next tour! Hope the rest of the journey goes as smoothly.
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4 years ago

Scott AndersonWell, it’s had a few bumps so far, to be honest.
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4 years ago