May 11, 2016
My flight out of Newark Airport (EWR) was on a Wednesday at 6am. That's right, 6am! I connected through Miami so it was considered a domestic flight. That means one only has to get there two hours before flight time instead of three hours for international. So, I had to be there at 4am, yikes.
I naturally awake at 5am and haven't had to use an alarm for centuries. But waking up at 2:30am was a tad unnatural for me. And I'm a heavy sleeper. So, I had to go find an alarm. It's fairly simple to do so nowadays. I set two alarms on my iPhone, one on my iPad, one each on the alarm clocks I owned and I arranged for three free phone wake up services to call. And I still wasn't comfortable, paranoid me.
They all worked. Too well! I found myself running around for 10 minutes at 2:30am that morn trying to figure out how to turn off each alarm and answering the phone at the same time. One phone service kept calling every five minutes because I didn't wait until the end of the message to confirm I was awake. That took about five tries to figure out.
Mission accomplished, albeit short of calling 911 for the heart attack I seemed to be having.
I made it to the airport at 4:15am - a 15 minute drive turned out to be 30 because of all the detours on the way and a cabbie who refused to use a navigator. Still, I figured I had plenty of time.
But whoa!! I got to security at about 4:30 and the line seemed to be eons long, like an hour wait, or more. Still, I figured I was safe because I am now, ahem, a Known Traveler. That's the program you join by getting invited to by an airlines or paying hard cash - and passing an interview by a federal agent. I failed the first time, but that's another story which I'll have to relate sometime. Anyway, I digress.
I went to the front of the line and asked the TSA guy where I go. He told me to go to the end of the line. WTF! He really wasn't paying attention and didn't really look at my boarding pass which clearly stated TSA Pre [checkmark symbol]. But what do I know? It was the first time traveling elite. I went to the end of the line, which took me about a half hour to get to.
There must be a God though. After 15 minutes of waiting on line and going about 2", another TSA agent came by and announced that all Known Travelers should go to the front of the line. I was at my gate 10 minutes later without even having to take off my smelly shoes.
After a short stop in Miami, I made it to Belize City by shortly after 10am. Well, I did turn my watch back 2 hours. And then it was off to my jungle resort in Cayo (hmmmm... contradictory term?) I stayed at the Mystic River Resort, 30 minutes from town, San Ignaico, and a million miles from my reality.
My flight out of Newark Airport (EWR) was on a Wednesday at 6am. That's right, 6am! I connected through Miami so it was considered a domestic flight. That means one only has to get there two hours before flight time instead of three hours for international. So, I had to be there at 4am, yikes.
I naturally awake at 5am and haven't had to use an alarm for centuries. But waking up at 2:30am was a tad unnatural for me. And I'm a heavy sleeper. So, I had to go find an alarm. It's fairly simple to do so nowadays. I set two alarms on my iPhone, one on my iPad, one each on the alarm clocks I owned and I arranged for three free phone wake up services to call. And I still wasn't comfortable, paranoid me.
They all worked. Too well! I found myself running around for 10 minutes at 2:30am that morn trying to figure out how to turn off each alarm and answering the phone at the same time. One phone service kept calling every five minutes because I didn't wait until the end of the message to confirm I was awake. That took about five tries to figure out.
Mission accomplished, albeit short of calling 911 for the heart attack I seemed to be having.
I made it to the airport at 4:15am - a 15 minute drive turned out to be 30 because of all the detours on the way and a cabbie who refused to use a navigator. Still, I figured I had plenty of time.
But whoa!! I got to security at about 4:30 and the line seemed to be eons long, like an hour wait, or more. Still, I figured I was safe because I am now, ahem, a Known Traveler. That's the program you join by getting invited to by an airlines or paying hard cash - and passing an interview by a federal agent. I failed the first time, but that's another story which I'll have to relate sometime. Anyway, I digress.
I went to the front of the line and asked the TSA guy where I go. He told me to go to the end of the line. WTF! He really wasn't paying attention and didn't really look at my boarding pass which clearly stated TSA Pre [checkmark symbol]. But what do I know? It was the first time traveling elite. I went to the end of the line, which took me about a half hour to get to.
There must be a God though. After 15 minutes of waiting on line and going about 2", another TSA agent came by and announced that all Known Travelers should go to the front of the line. I was at my gate 10 minutes later without even having to take off my smelly shoes.
After a short stop in Miami, I made it to Belize City by shortly after 10am. Well, I did turn my watch back 2 hours. And then it was off to my jungle resort in Cayo (hmmmm... contradictory term?) I stayed at the Mystic River Resort, 30 minutes from town, San Ignaico, and a million miles from my reality.
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