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Today is Friday and me and Lauren are heading out to a week long trip back to my home land, Arizona!
This morning we woke up at a reasonable time, after getting a good night sleep and had some muffins we got in a grocery delivery order by accident.
The night before we dropped off our cat at Lauren's parent's house. It's nice, because Lauren actually lived with her parents for a good bit of the time she had Lola, so she is also very comfortable with them and their house. So we know she'll be taken care of to her high Princess standards.
Live Update: Were at Dulles! It's been smooth sailing so far. Everyone seems in a good mood.
Lauren has become very savvy with benefits and and so our first stop is to find a premium lounge to chill in. We went to the Turkish Airlines Lounge but it was full. We tried Lufthansa Airline Lounge but it was also full, oh well!
We are taking the train back to our terminal!
We are in our terminal now. I just dropped by the bathroom and now I'm waiting by the luggage while Lauren takes a break.
Walking through the airport I was thinking about what a strange place airports are. Spaces in airports don't feel like normal places. Every wall, closet, and light fixture seems like it's from some hidden place. The weird carpets from the 80's seem like they were spat out by some time warp and of course no one could change them.
We stopped at a restaurant in our terminal lunch.
Lunch was tasty. I got a hamburger which I enjoyed. We have now moved to our gate to get ready to board. We have first class seats for the flight. Another amenity provided by Lauren's ability to find deals and upgrades. I do feel like the extra space always feels pretty deluxe on these flights, I'm looking forward to it!
I am in a math class right now. Math has been my greatest hurdle in getting back to school to pursue my engineering degree, but I have been working hard to break past that. One thing I have been trying to incorporate into my mindset on this, if I am going to get my degree and also continue to enjoy traveling, I must learn to study while traveling.
I mention this because I plan to use the flight to Arizona catching up on some math study. That gives me a good 5 hours to focus on studying and getting assignments done for the week we will be on the trip. I will continue to take breaks during the trip.
Update! We've boarded the plane and are getting settled!
Out seats are nice and roomy, something I am so grateful for!
The plane has now taken off! I'm currently looking out at the countryside of Virginia, on a pretty clear day.
I am recovering from a past fear of flying. It was something I did not always have but developed after a rough flight that I unexpectedly could not shake. Since me and Lauren have gone on our many travels I have been gradually conquering this irrational fear and I refuse to let it inhibit me. It now mostly effects me while waiting at the gate and at takeoff and landing, and even then I am learning to simply shake it off.
Traveling has been such a worthwhile experience and I'm glad I have been able to work past it. I am now at a point when we go to the airport I feel sad if we're not going into the international section. That was such a unique and exciting experience I can't wait for our next international trip.
Dinner service has started. To begin, a glass of sparkling water and some heated nuts.
My in flight meal: Cobb salad with chicken, and a slice of apple pie.
My review: I thought it was tasty. The chicken was surprisingly tender and moist and the apple pie was also some kind of cheesecake? It was definitely nicer than I would expect from in air flight.
As I sit on the flight I reflect on why we are leaving for this trip in the first place. Last time I was in Arizona I was there to, first help my father after his heart surgery, and then, after his unexpected death, it was a mad dash to wrap up his affairs and take my sister and what few shards of that life we could carry back to an uncertain future in Baltimore. The fall of the house of Brogdon.
But since then, things have changed. After some personal growth, and the encouragement of my dear friends, I have changed, and life carried on. I now have a career that I take great pride in. I am now a proud husband. And I am continuing to seek personal development whenever I can.
So circling back, the purpose of this trip is to return back to Arizona on my own terms. I will show my new wife where my story started with a pleasant distance, as happy tourists
Back to the flight, after dinner I got out my laptop and got to work on some math. A hole in my school strategy I'm beginning to notice is that I will be in such a rush to get my assignments done, I will skip the work problems and just try to finish the assignments immediately. Without doing the work problems, I am essentially just reading about math and not doing math. So I must periodically remind myself to just do the work. It does seem to be helping, because of course it would.
At the start of the flight, the captain mentioned that the last leg of the flight may have some chop from a storm system in front of Arizona. We are now moving through that turbulence and it is certainly giving me some pangs of anxiety from aforementioned flying anxiety. I think this may be a time to show my resilience and grow. Turbulence does not equal aircraft malfunctions. Pilots are trained professionals and from what I understand, they work hard to make commercial flights as smooth as possible while military aircraft are constantly enduring much more unpleasant riding conditions.
The veil of clouds outside has cleared and the captain just announced we have passed the bulk of the choppy weather and soon we will begin our decent into Phoenix! It's so fascinating when you are on a flight going west in the afternoon, I think I have been watching the sun set for a couple hours now out the window, it's just starting to catch up to me and sink into the horizon.
In general, views from the window of a plane are so mind boggling. I've been studying the branching patterns of mountains, forests, rivers, and even cloud formations as I watched them pass by. It's amazing to see how much they reflect each other, even our cities and farmlands are nestled in these natural patterns. The earth looks so craggy and bare from high above. The farmlands in the Midwest are probably the most obvious signs of human redevelopment, probably because of their size. It makes me think about how, despite the tremendous advances we have made, we are also still not as distant from our ancient roots than we would like to think.
Touchdown!
As we came down over Phoenix at night it was quite beautifully glowing with city lights. The landing was a little hard but otherwise fine, and I'm glad to be done with our flight! We did have a bit of a scare from the car rental agency. Lauren noticed she had a bill that was over double our quoted payment on her card. When we got in we talked to the rental desk and it was revealed that earlier, someone with a similar name
