Heading to the airport, lugging two just a hair under 50 pound bags, I am off for another double marathon weekend. First up is the Surfside Beach Marathon in Surfside Beach, TX. Then after jetting back to Florida, it’s the Gainesville, FL, Five Points of Life Marathon. Both races are kindly offering race day packet pickup; without that, I’d have no chance of pulling this off.
As it is, I’m a little leery of the travel involved. I’ve got a weird feeling… not a bad feeling just… weird. I’ve been sleeping terribly, worried no doubt about the upcoming Amtarctica trip. They just sent a final instructions pack that included such confidence building advice as: “someone will lose their luggage; someone will have problems with their connections. Don’t let it be you.” There’s not a lot of advice on how to NOT be it.
As I checked in my luggage at LAX, having endured a shuttle2lax ride in a commandeered Uber that smelled of cigarettes and loan sharking, I was hoisted by my own petard once again. Apparently self-check-in doesn’t apply to boxes … Albeit that information is nowhere on the signage. I lugged my bag and despite having already checked the bags with tags the admittedly very nice desk staff worked to get it resolved for me. I have no idea what claim checks I have now. Fingers crossed the stuff gets to Houston tonight and Orlando tomorrow.
I failed to grab a few things at the last minute from the house… Even had them laid out to take as I armed the alarm on my way out the door. So they’re safely there… Just not with me. Ah, well. Maybe that’s the lost luggage Marathon Tours was warning me about and I’ll have no issues in the Southern Hemisphere.
In the meantime, I sit here at Gate 10, a gate relegated to what can only be called the bastard step child wing of the seemingly always under construction LAX Terminal 1. Having done my best to use up foodstuffs at home before leaving, I ran out of Diet Coke yesterday so I’m severely under caffeinated at the moment. I know it’s terrible for me but I try and limit my vices and Diet Coke is one of them. So I broke down and bought a 20 oz soda here at the airport. I did still shop around… A few stores had them for $2.99 and the one I bought was $2.87. With tax it was a $3.18 Diet Coke which is overpriced … But when economic conditions are such that we are barred from liquids through security, the market forces exploit my addiction to their advantage. It’s not even chilled; I’ve had better product from my local dealers.
in any event, it’s helping with some of the physical headaches… The travel headaches though are another story. But in order to get places to run, to live, to be, I guess we put up with the problems. Be they here or in South America or beyond.