Day 1 - Travel is so Much Fun

We will be getting on a cruise ship tomorrow. We were on the very last Holland America cruise after the pandemic started so we figured that we should be on the first one back. Victoria has stated that if we get stuck on this cruise we will be getting ourselves home. This ship will sail with a 50% capacity and everyone on board will be fully vaccinated. Holland America does not have the full self serve buffet that other cruise lines have so we already know to not expect that. After a week on our last cruise anything that was self serve was now behind plexiglass. We have been assigned an embarkation time and will not be allowed in the building before that time to reduce crowds. Our boarding passes are on our phones and we have uploaded our photos. Hopefully the process goes smoothly and we do not have to hang around too long. There is some worry about COVID cases rising in Alaska. Sitka is already looking iffy. We have a 6:30 pm flight. I am so used to taking off early that this feels weird. We are pretty much packed, still having discussions about me bringing my DSLR camera. We are taking only carryon bags since this is a one week cruise. I will tell you one thing that you do not want to find out 4 hours before you leave home, that your TSA PreCheck has expired. It seems that it expired on my birthday, but they did not send anything to me. This explains why I had issues in Albuquerque, but not how I got through TSA PreCheck in Cincinnati. Then again in Cincinnati they had to search my right shoulder instead of my right knee because it is an artificial joint. We get online, Rob is attempting to renew his since it will expire while we are on the cruise. I am attempting to get mine reinstated. We finally get everything filled out. They will let us know. Fine, I separate my liquids and prepare for going through regular TSA. Rob loads the suitcases into the van. We had decided that when I got home from the Ann Arbor Art Fair we would just pull out the garment bags and hang everything in the garage. I did not want it all packed away while we were gone and to be honest I wanted to make sure that everything dried out. We left everything else in the van. I popped the lids on my bins and left it at that. This meant that putting suitcases in was not the easiest thing to do. We get to the off site parking and for once we find a spot that is not somewhere in the next county. The shuttle is right there and we head for the airport. Rob checks the departure board, after I aim him away from the arrival board. We are going out of gate A 1. Wait, I do not have to walk 2 miles to get to the gate? Wow. Rob heads for TSA PreCheck and I head for the regular TSA. I am trying to figure out which line will be best. I guess pretty well. I have an Asian woman with her son in front of me. They do not speak a lot of English, the TSA agent actually works well with them through gestures and patience. It is my turn, my boarding pass will not scan the first three times. Please do not do this to me and then suddenly "beep" it goes through. I get to the table to put our stuff through the scanner. We are being told to pull all electronics out and to put them in their own bin. I have a laptop and a tablet, do they go in the same bin or in their own bin? It does not matter, we are out of bins. There is only the bottom thisn that read "Do Not Use." I keep saying to the agent that we are out of bins. The Asian mother and son grab one of the "Do Not Use" bins and get told that they cannot use that. They are confused. I now pull out my best teacher voice. "We are out of bins." Oh, you need more bins? A woman behind me says that she heard me say that at least 4 times. I pull my laptop and tablet and put my phone in with them. I put my bag in a bin and ask about the Cpap, no, it can stay in its case. I am pushing things forward, they appear to be attempting to make up time. The agent asks me about my shoes. Doh! I explain that my PreCheck has expired. He understands. I go through the scanner and they pull me aside. Oh, my knee. Nope, my shirt has these little decorative studs on it and they need to find a woman to pat the studs down. OK, memo to self, do not wear this shirt when flying. I head for gate A 1 and get there quickly, and there is no one there. Sigh, back out to the main concourse. I do not see any departure boards. I step to the side and pull up Alaska Air on my phone and find that it is A 7. Again, not far, but I am a little stressed. I find Rob and he goes to fill our water bottles. We are in the last boarding group so no big hurry. They are holding people up because it is hot in the jetway and do not want people to stand their too long. We finally get on the plane and the aisle is backed up. I sigh and the flight attendant chuckles and said that people appear to be a little slow today. I comment that it is not that hard, suitcase up in the bins, body down in the seat. She tells another attendant to give me the mic. These new planes have different luggage bins, you put your suitcase on its side instead of on its back. They made the announcement about this twice in the waiting area and have little diagrams showing people how to do this. Do you know how many people still put their suitcase on the back? I tell the guy ahead of me in the aisle, he looks confused so I point to the diagram. Oh, wow. There is one suitcase in the bin above us, and it is on its back, I turn it and put mine in. The flight attendant thanks me. I have been assigned the center seat and Rob the aisle and based on experience he switches with me. This flight has a lot of kids on it, I mean little kids. We have a kicker behind us, but the parents keep attempting to stop it. I get it 4.5 hours is a long time to not swing your legs. We have an amazingly quiet baby ahead of us. I make faces at the baby and she giggles. It is hard to make faces with a face mask on. The flight attendants are very vigillant of the face masks. They keep telling people to put them back on or to pull it up over their nose. The flight is not too bad, a few crying babies and one idiot playing a video game with shotting without muting it. A little turbulance but I have had worse. The landing is smooth and we get off. This is a huge airport and there are a lot of people here. We have an airport for the night with a free shuttle. Rob calls to tell them that we have landed and need the shuttle. They ask where we are. We are not in the correct spot so we go downstairs and go through luggage return as told. We get out to the curb and this does not look right. Rob calls again. We have to go back in, go up and go across. OK, now we are at A1 as told. NOW they will send the van. We keep watching and waiting. We are near the spot for parking pick up. We see a lot of other hotels. To us it is now after midnight. We are tired. After 25 minutes the shuttle pulls up. We are the only ones on. The hotel is fairly close to the airport and we check in easily. We get our room cards and get to the room. We are tired and take a bit to figure out the lock. You do not insert it, you tap and it opens the lock. It keeps beeping, but does not open. We try both cards, nope. I finally ask for the card holder. We are tyring to get into 301 and we are supposed to be in 307. Oops. I hope that whoever was in the room did not hear us attempting to enter. Finally we are in bed. How do I know that I will still wake up on Eastern time?