Wedding Weekend: The Beginning

Well, after Tom related his little horror story about BWI, I made damn sure to leave in plenty of time. Fortunately, at seven a.m. there’s not a whole lot of traffic. Parking was actually quite easy; I will say that BWI’s done parking right. Yes, you still have to catch a shuttle to the terminal, but the lot itself is set up with electronic sensors that tell you not only how many spots are available per level, but per row as well. Seriously, you just follow the green arrows and look for a spot with a green light at the front. Ridiculously simple.

Of course, the paranoid in me wonders just how much those autosensors record...

Security was tedious, but not ridiculous. I’d certainly spent a hell of a lot more time at Chicago’s Midway terminal. And in the end, I arrived at my gate a full hour before boarding. Alas, neither readily accessible power outlets nor ’net access (the neighboring AirTran gate did have a WiFi station, but my efforts to actually use it proved fruitless).

At long last, we boarded the flight, at which point we sat on the tarmac for a good half-hour, waiting while the crew ironed out a number of “issues.” Most of which were rather nebulously defined behind-the-scenes problems, but another being a family traveling with year-old twin girls. Apparently, nobody bothered to mention when they made their reservation that they weren’t allowed to have two “lap children” in the same row — only four emergency air masks per three-seat group, apparently. Which meant a lot of shuffling of seats, rearranging of carry-on baggage... and that I ended up seating near not one, but two babies.

Actually, the babies were fine — a little crying, but nothing ridiculous. What was more annoying was the passenger right next to me who kept snidely mentioning how terrible the flight was going to be.

In any case, the flight arrived more or less on time, and Adrian (the best man) called just as I was walking through the airport; he was waiting outside and ready to pick me up. As I had no checked luggage to pick up (one of the tactics I’d learned from all my recent business travel), I hopped out and we were on our way.

We arrived at Rancho Mañana about forty minutes later, having just enough time to drop off the luggage and head out to the rehearsal. The casita in which we were staying was absolutely gorgeous, and it had one feature I found a particularly fortuitous portent.

The number of the casita was 37. Which as any Clerks fan could tell you, is a number of rather significant import...