Stage 1: Complete

21 February 2014

Well, it took some doing, but we made it to San Francisco! Our friends picked us up a bit before 7.  Joe was out shoveling the front steps so we could get down them without tripping.  I wondered if we'd be able to tell we'd shoveled last night - you can see by what accumulated that maybe we wasted

our time! They had a shovel in their wonderful 4 wheel drive vehicle, and just started digging along with him. We ended up wearing our boots, so we didn't end up with shoes full of snow, but not winter coats.  We got to the airport about 7:30, and then we started waiting.  And waiting.  We waited about 20 minutes just to hand off our already checked baggage.  Then we waited about 30 more minutes to get through security.  After the storm, so many flights were cancelled and delayed that things were all jammed up, plus many staff members weren't able to get in on time.  But we still made it to the gate in plenty of time. Got there and there wasn't any plane.  It had to come over from the hanger.  At least it was already at the airport! We were only a bit late boarding the plane and we thought all would be well.  Sigh. 'Twas not to be.

I'm not sure where the plane spent the night, but it sure wasn't anywhere sheltered or warm.  It took mechanics quite some time to get all the ice out of the engine. Yes, the engine. Never heard of that before, but I can certainly see how ice chunks breaking off into the engine would be a bad thing! Then we headed off to the deicing pad to get the rest of the plane done.  Well, let me tell you, it was really covered in ice.  The crews had to get in under the plane to clear the landing gear, and then move on to the body.  We were there well over 40 minutes - I'm really not sure how long. Even the crew thought that was a very long time.  By the time we took off, we were nearly 2 hours late. You'd think Delta might do something in the way of an apology - maybe a free drink, maybe some free food.  You'd be wrong. And since we were seated near the center of the plane and the four attendants worked in pairs from the ends to the middle, by the time they got to us, all the fresh food was gone. We got a snack pack, but it was really full of fatty, caloric stuff, so we didn't eat all of it.  We'd gotten small snacks in the airport, but had planned lunch in SF. Clearly that wasn't going to happen, so the snack had to tide us over. It's irritating - they must have known we'd be delayed, and could have told us so we'd have been able to get some food to take on board. But they like to keep up the pretense of being on time.

We sure flew over a lot of snow.  Then we flew over a lot of dry. Finally, we started to see - green!!! Something we haven't seen outside in far too long.

By the time we got downtown, Kendra was at an appointment, so we left our luggage at her hotel and climbed up this hill to Coit Tower.  That got the blood circulating again...  What a gorgeous day we had - so lovely to walk outside without the Minnesota hunch! We discovered the Grace Marchant Garden, a lovely spot on the way up the hill - blooming roses, ripening lemons, and all. And the views! 
Heaven. Anyone know what the flower below
is? We went back to the hotel and met Kendra.  Yeah! We went back to their place and waited for James, and then walked all the way down to Fisherman's Wharf - 1.5 miles  - for In 'n Out Burgers.  Can't get those in MN.  I'm not much of a burger person, but even I like the cheeseburger animal style. Thank goodness we took the bus home, as it's nearly all uphill going that way.

Long day, but a good one - since we got to the kids!



What a view! And what a price...

P.S. We found out later that, in the confusion of our friends arriving early, we left our back door unlocked and somehow it popped open! Thank goodness our neighbors saw it, investigated, found nothing amiss, and locked up.