Our plan was 8:30 leave; 9 arive at rental lot and transfer to terminal; 9:30 checkin. We checked this with reception who advised caution on Interstate traffic so we left at 8 for peace of mind anter a good breakfast including our last freshly made waffle.
I have mentioned before my desire not to leave much fuel in the rental car and with 13 miles to the airport was happy with 27 miles of fuel, however, the minute we drove out of the hotel car park the fuel gauge moved to "Low Fuel" with warning lights. Now, if it had continued to display 25 and count down as our own car does, I would have been fine, however, with strange motorways with unknown traffic and a flight to catch, "Low Fuel" takes on a completely different status and I was a nervous wreck for the fortunately smooth 30 minute drive. We were also warm as we turned off the a/c to reduce fuel use.
Very relieved we arrived and checked in the vehicle with no problems and got on the 10 minute transfer bus to the terminal at Seattle International Airport SEA-TAC.
Our route is via Chicago so, this being a domestic flight, everything was very low key though security was thorough. It intrigues me that there is no consistant pattern. Here everyone had to take off shoes but only laptops needed to be out of bags. On the way out, shoes were mostly ok but ipads and any large electronics such as cameras had to be out of bags. Seattle also used the body scanners which fo no reason I understand have been removed in the UK. A security officer laughed at me removing my watch which would trigger metal detectors in the UK. All a bit of a puzzle.
The 4 hr flight somehow passed quickly. Much of the early part the skies were clear and we passed over the Southern Cascade mountains and the volcanoes before heading out further west looking down on the circles created by rotary irregation in the fields below.
Having crossed time zones our landing 4 hours later suddenly became 17:30 giving us 4 hours to pass at Chicago O'Hare which seemed oddly familiar having passed through here a year ago after visiting our daughter and her husband who were out here working.
Shortly after 9pm we wandered down toward the gate and puzzled that so few people were there well before the boarding time given. We joined the queue thinking how tardy everyone was and boarded the already full plane. Seems we were the tardy ones.
Fully boarded we were away on time for the 7.5hr crossing to the UK. Tried a bit of reading, a bit of TV and ended up re-watching the excellent Cars to the early hours. Hardly managed any sleep in spite of a very comfortable Dreamliner aircraft.
We exited the airport to a quite pleasent English summer day at about midday to jump in a taxi home.
And that was our journey done. Thank you for following us, we hope you enjoyed the ride.
Statistics: Miles today: 14; Miles so far: 3339; Fuel added so far: 111.9 US gals; States: Washington ; Time Zone: Pacific (UK -8)
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Thank you for stopping by, Lynne & Ged