We woke up (too) early so we could get to SFO for our 8:36 flight with time to spare. I never want to worry about time, after all. Of course we were there in plenty of time, but we did have to check luggage for this trip.

You might wonder about that… so I’ll tell you: we were taking a rather heavy sewing machine with us, to hand over to Kelsey. We very well might have been allowed to take it as carryon, but we didn’t want to take the chance that they’d say now, what with the needles and a pinking sheers included in the suitcase. (A suitcase I purchased for $15 at Goodwill so we could just leave it with them.)

After checking the luggage we went though security. That was different than before … no need to show/scan our passport: a machine scans our license and another scans our face. This changed since my NYC trip! So security was quick and easy (aside from Dan’s belt setting off the alarm, that is).

Then to the lounge near gate E5. A small, noisy, somewhat ho-hum lounge. We got there in time to find a place to sit. Others weren’t so fortunate. I think we’ll use a different lounge in the future if we are in the E wing even if we have to walk a distance, as it was rather unpleasant. As a man said to me when he, too, was dismayed, “First world problems!”

The flight was fine … until it wasn’t. The pilot explained that he was unable to land at the San Diego (SAN) airport due to the weather so we were going to Ontario and they’d figure out how to get us to our destination after landing. Um. Okay. So we landed. We sat for a while. He finally said he now was cleared to go to SAN after refueling. He later said that something was no longer working on the plane but he could navigate without it. Heh. Another Um. Okay.

While on that second flight we were instructed to keep our seatbelts on. We weren’t to drink any alcohol we brought ourselves. The flight attendants were to stay seated, as we were to do as well. But “If we had anything we needed we should let them know.” Hm. Not sure how that would work since they weren’t t get up. I just laughed.

Before landing the pilot came back on and said we were nearly diverted to LA, but we were now going to be able to land at SAN. I just laughed.

After landing and retrieving our luggage (which we were told would be a carousel 5 but was really at 6) we headed outside to wait for Kelsey & Mel to pick us up. It was raining — looks like we are in for weather in warm and sunny San Diego! Then we headed to our hotel.

We were allowed to check in early (hooray!), and then we walked a bit in Little Italy to find food. After a nice rather late brunch we walked more, had coffee, and went back to the hotel for a brief rest while I looked to see where we’d eat dinner.

Dinner was at a nice little French place (First photo above is brunch and second is dinner.). We spent a good amount of time there, and finally headed back to the hotel to sleep.

A good, despite the flight issues, but VERY long day. What can you do? We aren’t in control of weather, and it wasn’t worth getting upset over.