Forgive my sporadic posting schedule this week! My weekend travel didn’t pan out as planned….

I can cross “spend the night in an airport terminal” off my bucket list! It was a loooong weekend, and all I wanted was my bed and my pillow when I got home. I slept for 14 hours yesterday, straight through the Super Bowl. I heard I didn’t miss much though!

Last Thursday I flew out to Southern California for a doctor’s appointment. I’ll blog all about it later this week, because we really made the most of my 48 hour trip! I had a return ticket for Saturday night, with a brief layover in San Francisco on my way home to the Boise airport.

My first flight was slightly delayed, arriving at 8:30pm. My next flight departed at 8:45pm, but it was only a couple gates over so it wouldn’t take more than a minute to get there. But my first plane sat for 15 minutes waiting for a jet bridge driver to bring out the bridge to deplane, and by the time I stepped off the doors to my connecting flight were shut. I could see the plane I was meant to be on sitting at the gate out the window, but there were no gate agents around to communicate to the captain and let him know he had a passenger that was delayed by airport operations. (My boyfriend is a pilot, so I know they have some lee-way and could’ve waited an extra minute to let me on!)

The customer service counter informed me that the next flight to Boise was at 9:00am….a 12 hour wait. She gave me a discount code for a hotel room, but they had zero rooms available that night. I got a $10 meal voucher for an airport eatery, and they all closed at 10pm so I had to quickly decide where to get my meal for the night. I was really bummed to be spending the night in the airport. Since my luggage was checked, I only had my backpack which didn’t contain any extra clothes or my reading books.

(The “blanket” customer service gave me….basically a scarf)

Before the restaurants closed, I grabbed a veggie burger and large water bottle. I called my parents and my boyfriend, but they were both in different time zones and it was getting really late for them so we said goodnight around 10:30pm and I started exploring the airport.

All in all, I walked 14 miles according to my fitness tracker, and I believe it! I didn’t sit down for too long at a time because the air conditioning was blasting and I would start to shiver with goosebumps after being sedentary for more than 30 minutes.

I meant to weigh the backpack I was carrying when I got home! I am a horrible judge of weight so I don’t have a clue how heavy it was, but it felt like a small child. It contained my laptop and charger, large water bottle, make-up bag and curling iron, wallet, and a pair of shoes. I could go from shivering to sweating in about 10 minutes after walking around with that on my back! I definitely got in my required activity for the day while I sat in the airport for 12 hours.

Initially knowing that I had half a day to occupy myself, I had grand intentions. I would blog and work on some fiction writing, and create a YouTube video. I did create the YouTube video! But I’m not sure the content would be interesting to anyone other than myself 😀 It’s a highlight reel of January moments so far, and while they are special to me I am fully aware that other people are probably not as enamored by my daily walks, meals, or pampering routine. I posted it as a journal for myself. 🙂  My goal eventually is to turn the camera around and actually TALK during my videos, but I haven’t gotten that comfortable yet haha. So enjoy the amazing songs I picked out for background music instead!

https://youtu.be/kn5yjz19fNw

Then I did start working on the blog post but I knew my brain felt absolutely foggy with exhaustion and the creative juices weren’t exactly flowing. I decided to wait until today after catching up on sleep and feeling normal again.

My boyfriend Zeb left on a 4-day trip (he’s a commercial pilot) on Saturday, and as luck would have it – he was flying into the San Francisco airport on Sunday morning! My flight back to Boise departed San Francisco at 9:00am, and Zeb wasn’t due to arrive until 10:00am. Soooo close! I made sure to ask him what gate he was arriving in, and then made a little stop at the airport gift shop when they opened at 5am on Sunday morning. I found a post card and his favorite gummy bears. I like to leave “love notes” whenever and wherever I can!

So I went to the gate agent and asked her if I could leave a note and treat for the pilot coming in on the next flight. (I hope I didn’t sound like a stalker!) She made sure I understood that she could not accept anything from me, but if I left it on the desk then I could hope that it was still there for him. I texted Zeb before I departed telling him to look for something pink at his arrival gate, and thankfully it was still there 🙂

Once I landed in Boise, I had been awake for 28 hours so I decided to skip the Super Bowl party I had been planning on going to. I just unpacked, did my laundry, cleaned up my kitchen, showered, and fell asleep for 14 hours. 😀

Now I’m fully recharged! I’ve been to San Francisco quite a few times. My sixth grade class flew there for a field trip, and I toured SF State University during my senior year of high school but decided it was not the college for me. This San Francisco stay was by far my least favorite…..it’s just not the same without the bread bowl, Ghiradelli ice cream, and Alcatraz tour.

XO Kenz