Saturday July 6 - Sunday, July 7 - Home to JFK to Moscow

After 3 weeks in Portland, Oregon with Serge, Nikki and Theo, I arrived home on July 4^th. Kara picked me up at the airport about noon. I spent the rest of the day trying to get ready to leave again. I washed clothes, sorted the mail, mowed the lawn and watered plants indoors and out. Wow, I was a lot more productive than usual. I had a whole day on the 5^th to finish packing, get my documents in order, and ready my electronics for this trip. That is when I discovered that I had left my good camera – or best camera – in Portland. Oh, well, need to regroup. I struggled to try to fit everything into a carry-on. Things were very tight in my little Eddie Bauer rolling duffel, so I switched to a slightly bigger bag. I am expecting that it will not be accepted as a carry-on. This might be all right, since I have a direct flight from JFK to Moscow, but I have a short stopover there before my flight to Sochi and I am wondering if my need to go to baggage claim will make me miss that flight. I guess we shall see.

On Saturday morning, I did some last things to pack up my day pack with all the essentials. I am also carrying a small tote with stuff to put under the seat when I fly (which I might have to consolidate if I can get my roller bag as a carry-on). The bag may be too heavy for carry-on. So Kara stopped over to help on her way to the tattoo shop and I had her help me pull off some vines that we covering the front rhododendrons. I had done some weeding and clipping the day before. So the yard is as set as I can make it. After Kara left, I ate some cheese for lunch and showered, packed up the last bits, turned off the upstairs computer, but forgot to turn off the downstairs computer. When I went to lower the hot water heater, I found I hadn't turned it back up. So now I was ready to catch the bus to Albany. It was later than I had planned to leave. The sky was dark green as the bus drove east and people talked about the coming storm. By the time we got to Albany it was raining. I got off on Broadway and it was still rainimg slightly. By this time, I had decided to Uber it to the train station so I tried my Uber app. It worked and Brittany picked me up and drove me over the river to the train station.

I waited a bit for the 4:20 pm train to NYC. When we arrived at Penn Station, I was surprised because I thought the trains now went to Grand Central. I will have to figure out what the deal is somehow. I don't have free wi-fi here at Hotel Edison so I am limited at the moment. This also rather screwed up my hotel plans since I had tried to pick one closer to Grand Central, even though I have to walk the 14 blocks back to Penn Station tomorrow morning. Hopefully, it will not be as crowded. My medium-sized red roller bag is not optimal because the handle is too short and the wheels seem a bit off. Anyway, I booked a night at this Hotel Edison on 47^th Street so that I could make my relatively early flight tomorrow am. I will try to go to bed early tonight. I found that I had already read the mystery book I brought. I can't carry anymore books and am fearful that my RL Stevenson book will not last me a month, so I will jettison the book and replace it at the airport I hope. I went out an bought two huge slices of pizza for dinner and am very thirsty. Luckily, I have two more bottles of water in my room.

Think that is all for now.

I got up at 7 am on Sunday morning with plans to shower and pack up and leave by 8 am.  Almost.  Trudging my way back to Penn Station (I think I already wrote this), I was surprised to discover that I was already at 35th Street and I thought I wasn't nearly so far.  I grabbed a pistachio croissant along the way and stuffed it into my tote bag.  I took the long way around Penn Station, saw a handicapped elevator that said LIRR, so I headed for it.  A young man and I pressed the button, neither of us had a clue as to where we would land up.  But I found my way to the LIRR ticket booth, bought a one-way ticket, made it to JFK by 9:15 am and had to wait around for an hour before the Aeroflot check-in would take me.  I stood in line for the last 20 minutes or so.  They didn't open until 10:23 - economy, that is; they opened business class and sky priority before that.

I still had a wait ahead of me once I got into the gate area.  I found a Hudson News - not a great selection but I saw a Louise Penny mystery that looked good and bought it, then got a mocha latte at Starbucks and I was on my way.  I managed to get some sleep on the flight but it never got dark really.  I saw a very long sunrise and then we had 2 hours to go.  I had a very nice fish dinner with cubed veggies and rice and then a second meal of bliny and cake - very sweet meal that was.  I couldn't get the map to be any bigger than a 2 inch x 1 inch inset so that was not very satisfying.  I tried the earphones but didn't like any of the music and it was blaring loud.  That is about all I remember of the flight before the next day started.