Snowy YXE to Sunny PHX

 We're going to Phoenix, baby!  And the timing is pretty darn fabulous.  A weekend of wintry blizzards, courtesy of March (the meanest of all months), and the city streets are impassable without 4WD, and the temperatures are dropping.  Good time to get away.  😊

During the weekend, we had some concerns about whether we'd be able to fly out on Monday.  The blizzard was originally forecast to end on Monday at noon.  Fortunately for us, it ended late Sunday night.  Monday was clear skies, and apparently clear runways for the planes to come and go.

We were booked to fly out in the afternoon at 3:40 p.m.  I had some appointments in the morning, but when getting home around 10:00 a.m., that left me with several hours to pack.  (Yes, I am a last-minute luggage packer.  If I pack early, I can't remember what I've packed.)  I dillied and dallied, deciding which pair of shoes, which shade of black shirt to pack, and should I go with the moss green sunglasses, or the purple mirrored?  You know, all of the important stuff.

At 1:15, we headed to the airport.  We were already checked in online, so just had to print out our baggage tags.  Printed, and attached to luggage.  But when Patricia tried to load her luggage on the conveyor belt, it stopped and started, and stalled for a while.  The staff turned the machine on and off, and it started again.  I put my luggage on the belt, and it started, following some other luggage, then the belt stopped again.  Multiple clerks stood around, hitting the red button and the green buttons repeatedly to try to restart the belt.  I was disinclined to leave until I saw my baggage go on its way, so I watched and waited.  More luggage piling up.  A WestJet clerk removed our bags from the belt.  People talked on walkie-talkies, and pushed the red and green buttons, vainly trying to restart the belt.

Eventually after about 10 minutes, the conveyor belt starts up again.  Yay!  Except, my luggage and someone else's is still sitting behind the barricade, NOT on the belt.  A security guard tells me to tell the WestJet people to put it on the belt, or it may get left behind.  Of course, the WestJet people are busy taking other people's luggage and putting it on the belt.  They tell me that they will put mine on there (but they keep doing what they're doing).  I don't trust them.  I've seen too many news stories about wayward luggage.  Eventually, I corner a walkie-talkie WestJet guy and ask him to pleeeease put my luggage on the conveyor belt so that I can board my plane.  He does - my luggage trundles off to its destiny (which is hopefully Phoenix) - and I thank walkie-talkie man profusely.

Now, to clear security.  Surprise!  I do.  Surprise!  Patricia doesn't.  You may think that I'm the suspicious one, but when I travel with Patricia, she's always the one pulled over for more security.  She's like my canary in the security line.  While I collect my belongings, Patricia gets put into the interrogation tube.  Apparently, her squeaky shoes are registering as containing metal.  😂  The guards cannot discover the metal, and so they let her go.  That's weird, right?  Maybe there's a tiny pin or something that got lodged in the sole.

Anyway, upstairs for a Starbucks refreshment, then over to our gate to wait to board.  Looks like a bunch of old people are going to Phoenix (not counting us, of course). 😋 

Finally, we're boarding.  I walk down the boarding bridge, and there's that spot where the bridge is snuggled up against the exterior of the plane.  I see written on the side of the plane - "Boeing 737" - and I tap it and say "Uh oh!" to Patricia.  But we get on the plane anyway, and I don't quiz the pilot about quality control issues.

So, Row 23F, all the way to the back of the plane.  (FYI: better odds of survival back here.  Just so you know.)  I am aware that I am not as thin as I used to be, but hot damn!  The egg carton seats seem to be packed even tighter than before.  I am certainly as short as I've always been, but the chairs seem way closer to my knees than before.  I don't know how tall people manage to fit in these spaces.

Before taking off, I check my Tile app to verify that my luggage is nearby.  Whew!  It seems to have made its way onto the plane.  Finally, at about 4:10, we are rolling down the tarmac and headed for takeoff.

I don't know about you, but I love that moment when the plane has finished taxiing - it turns, and then you hear the engines roar, and our little metal bird goes faster and faster down the runway until you get that whooshy feeling of leaving the ground.  So awesome.

Now we settle in for our 3-hour flight.  What's the in-flight entertainment?  I peruse WestJet's offerings, but eventually I decide to just look out the window.  The landscape from above is always so interesting.

These days, air travel requires a lot of time: standing in lines, going through security, delays, waiting in more lines.  The golden age of travel is behind us, but it is still a beautiful privilege to be flying above the clouds and looking down on the world below.

We arrive in Phoenix to a lovely sunset sky, and a landscape devoid of snow.  Another miracle!  😁

It takes a while to get off the plane (did I mention all the old people flying to Phoenix?).  One of the guy behinds me comments how they unload the plane from the front AND back in Europe.  "But if they did that," I point out, "how would the rich people know they're rich?  The first-class people have to make us wait."

On the upside, the slow debarking means that our luggage arrives almost immediately after we've cleared Customs.  We head out to the ride-sharing curb outside, and Patricia books us an Uber for the drive from Sky Harbour to her home in Goodyear.  It's maybe a 35-minute drive this time of day.

So nice to be here!  But we're both quite hungry - in-flight pretzels and half a glass of pop aren't much of a meal.  So, stop and drop the luggage, get into Patricia's car and head to the nearby Fry's supermarket.  There, we can pick up some food from the deli, and the needed Coca-Cola supplies for the house, and spend the rest of the evening chilling out in her home.