Westward Ho Amigo

 

Photo above - Taken at the Hampton Hotel in Issaquah Washington.

I found myself enchanted with this cool arrangement of hanging lights.  It's a attractive way to fill up the upper space in an entry with a very high ceiling.

 

Our trip out West was pleasant and though we ran into a few snafus, most of the time things went smoothly.  We flew out of our local Sarasota/Bradenton airport to Atlanta, Georgia, the flight was on schedule and arrived on time.  However our flight out of Atlanta met with over a 2 hour delay and a near riot. 

They were preparing to get ready to board (which is not exactly like preparing to board) one of the passengers was traveling with an infant but did not bring along an infant car seat.  The passenger was told she would have to purchase a plane seat for the infant (and by infant we are talking about a baby between the ages of 3 to 6 months old).  The gate attendant was adamant that this procedure was necessary.  Meanwhile we all waited and waited and waited.  Finally someone in the crowd shouted; "Boo! Bad policy!  Let the lady and her baby on the plane." And then others joined in agreement.  Of course this now warrants a call to security and a whole lot more waiting.

Eventually things were sorted out and the passenger and her baby were allowed on board.  As for the passenger who first shouted out, I'm not 100% sure but I think they escorted him off for questioning.  At an airport it's important to keep your mouth shut.

It was a fairly long flight from Atlanta to Seattle and once our plane landed we still had to pick up our luggage at baggage claims, rent a car and then drive to Issaquah.  Hertz rental cars had graciously upgraded us from the fuel efficient Toyota we had requested, to a Nissan Altima.  Naturally we didn't think twice about it until I sat down inside the vehicle.  I looked around for the keys and found something sitting in a cup well of the car's console.  I picked it up and found they were Key-less Remotes.

 

above - key-less remote for the Nissan Altima

 

Naturally being the fossil that I am, I had no idea how to use one of those gadgets and was curious to see if my hubby would know.  After he had stashed the luggage in the trunk and got inside the car, I nonchalantly handed him the "keys" and said; "Good luck!"  

 

John, bless his heart, tried for a couple of minutes to start the car and then went to the Hertz office and asked them for the Toyota that he had requested in the first place.

It was really for the best as it would have taken us forever to figure out how to operate the Altima, plus the Toyota got better miles-per-gallon.  We ended up getting about 35 to 37 mpg at highway speeds.

 

When we at last reached our destination; the Hampton Hotel in Issaquah, we pretty much crashed.  Even though it may have only been 10:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time, we were running on Eastern DST which put us at about 1:00 a.m.

 

I took the photo of the Hotel lobby light fixtures the following day when I was almost alive and sort-of-functioning.