Dispatch from the Road: San Diego End of Trip

My apologies to faithful readers who hoped there would be daily updates from San Diego.  I worked all day, had dinners with friends at night, then got home to my room and went right to bed...before waking up early and starting the whole shebang all over again the next day.  Sorry.  Sorta boring.

I landed on Sunday evening, and as I walked off the plane through the jetway, I was greeted with a warm blast of air, a welcome event after a particularly tough winter.  It was sunny and in the 80's still at 1630, but this was to be the best weather of the trip.  Sorta cloudy the rest of the time and it cooled down a bit.

The abomination Hertz gave me

I got to Hertz, where I am a Gold Member.  This means I get to hop into a car without having to speak with a human.  My cellphone told me what space the vehicle was in, but I really didn't pay any attention to the make of the car, thinking it would be some formless mid-size.  Instead, when I got to the car, it was an enormous pick-em-up truck.  In retrospect, I should have gone to the counter and said "uh, no".  But I didn't.  Instead, I drove this behemoth around for four days, much of which time included driving around finding parking spots big enough to accommodate it,  I absolutely hated it.  I certainly can see the utility of such a vehicle for lots of things.  But as a rental in a major metropolitan area? Nope.

Things picked up this afternoon though, as brother Tom arrived in San Diego for  a business trip, and our schedules overlapped enough to have dinner before coming out here to the airport.  Tom is a pleasure to dine with, and he was very complimentary of my bethinned condition, at one point informing me that "you look almost as good as I do".  This is what passes for a compliment from Tom.

I am now at the United Club in San Diego, and the TV is droning CNN annoyingly.  I despise cable news, I really do.  I get almost all of my news these days online, and if I didn't, I'd buy a damn newspaper.

When I downloaded my boarding pass earlier today, I got the little bonus of seeing that I had been upgraded to first class.  This is a nice thing, of course, but to some extent it is wasted on me.  I will put my mask on and earplugs in, and as soon as wheels are up I'll be off to sleep.  For the distance.  Hopefully my seatmate will have a large bladder, as I hope not to be disturbed.

That's all for now, friends.