I will start with the good time.  While in Seattle I got to visit the Columbia Building with daughter Esther.  This qualified as an adventure up in the air because I actually saw airplanes going toward SeaTac on about our level.  It was above the Space Needle and every other high building in the city, actually made all the rest look small.  What a great view of the city, the harbor and the surrounding geography!  We had a special invite to happy hour at the Tower Club – thank you Duncan – and it was a great experience.  To relax with some great food and drink and conversation, all the while getting to look at this.

The appetizers we shared were large enough to serve as our meal.  We had lemon risotto, garlic mashed potatoes with buerre blanc and asparagus on one plate and quinoa with roasted tomatoes, glazed carrots and squash with kale and herb sauce on the other. Delicious.  Duncan was very creative with the drink he made Esther, using rhubarb liqueur and egg white.  He is the lead bartender at the Tower Club and did such a great job of making us feel welcome.  His parting advice to us was to make sure we visited the Ladies Room (even he had been there).  And the pics will show you why…

The flight home from Seattle was the bad time up in the air.  I won’t mention the airline because I don’t think it was their fault.  It was a “red eye” flight.  I was tired and wanted to sleep.  I had a middle seat between two strangers and as I usually do I said a few words just to let them know they had permission to speak with me if they wanted to.  I got a one word answer from one of them and that was the only exchange for the rest of the flight.  We all wanted to sleep, including the people in front of us who promptly reclined their seats.  I mention this because once that seat back was reclined I found I could no longer reach my bag which was at my feet.  My arms weren’t long enough.  And this became problematic when around 3 am I got a headache that made my whole face hurt and needed some headache relief medicine from my bag.  And to make things worse, it was really warm in the cabin.  I don’t know if they did that on purpose or maybe I just worked up a sweat trying to get my bag without lying my head down in someone’s lap.  Crashing headache, claustrophobia, heat wave and a developing nausea – perfect conditions for sleeping.  I was so glad to get off that plane, 5 hours later in Atlanta.

I took a couple Excedrin and started to feel the pain go away on the second flight, but by then I was having headache hallucinations – thinking I was eating my airplane snack while I was really sleeping.  It was very strange.  But now at home and after a good nap, I feel none the worse for the experience.  Travel, you never know what’s going to be next.  Just saying’…