)
Work was a madhouse that day, with people dumping more and more stuff on my desk and asking me to get it done before I left for the week, but I got through it and left for home at 12. My flight that evening was scheduled to take off at 6pm, so I had some time to go home, finish my last-minute packing, and have lunch before leaving for the airport. I even chatted briefly in the Tagrel.com chat room before shutting down and unplugging my computer.
Then I was off. Instead of parking at the airport, which would cost $7 a day, I had asked my friend Frank if I could park at his house (which would be free) and get a lift to the airport. This worked out well, since both my flight to Orlando and my flight home were evening flights, and Frank wouldn't be working when I needed rides to and from the airport. I left home at about 2:30 and got to Frank's house by 3, and we got to Baltimore Washington International airport by 3. I went immediately to the Southwest Airlines desk and checked in, leaving a suitcase and picking up my boarding pass for boarding group A.
Since there had been no lines at the SWA counter, I was now checked in with nothing to do but wait, and still had nearly 2 hours till my flight time. Oh, well, I'd rather be early than late. To fill in the time I went up to BWI's observation deck, which is a comfy and cozy little lounge on the second floor of the main wing of the terminal building, and read a paperback I had brought along (Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MaClean) for a while, then went down to the City Deli to get some dinner at about 4:30. Once dinner was over, I made my way through the security checkpoint to my gate. I noticed a lot of people with metal parts on their shoes had to take their shoes off and put them through the x-ray machine.
I spent the rest of the time until my boarding call sitting at the gate reading my paperback. Once boarding began, SWA's Cattle Call boarding procedures worked pretty well and the plane loaded up fairly quickly, and we took off at about 6:06. I was a little disappointed that I wound up in a middle seat instead of an aisle or window. The guy on my right was using a laptop and hogged the armrests, and the woman to my right was reading magazines with horrible perfume-scented ads in them which sent shooting pains through my sensitive sinuses. Still, I pulled out my laptop and managed, with elbows pulled close together, to begin the shell of my trip report. But I was too cramped to do much, so I wound up putting the laptop away after about 20 minutes and napping for the rest of the flight. We landed right on time at about 8:20.
Luggage handling on all my flights into Orlando International Airport (MCO) has always been very prompt, so by the time I made my way into the main terminal and down to baggage claim, the bags from my flight were just beginning to come out. I grabbed my big blue suitcase and went to the Thrifty rental car bus stop, arriving just as the bus was loading up to leave, and in about 15 minutes I was at the Thrifty rental facility signing out a 4-door Kia Rio. While signing it out, however, I noticed the TV near the door, which was tuned to the weather channel. The weather announcer was saying something about "Six to eight inches of snow predicted in the Baltimore/Washington region..." Six to eight inches of snow! The last weather report I had seen predicted rain and wintry mix for the Baltimore area, but no mention of snow.
I became even more glad I was in Orlando.
The temperature in Orlando was still in the low 70s, even so late in the evening, so I opened the window of my rental car and took off my sports jacket (I like to dress up a bit when I fly, makes the airline people think I'm a business traveler and I get slightly better treatment). The 20 or so miles between MCO and the Disney World area went by fairly quickly, and I decided to head to Downtown Disney before checking into my hotel, because I had an errand to run. Downtown Disney was not terribly crowded, so I had little difficulty in finding a parking space or getting into any of the stores. I went to the World Of Disney first and picked up a postcard with the WDW 2003 logo on it, and a set of 4 WDW bookmarks that I liked. As I checked out, I asked the Cast Member for a bunch of extra bags, which she graciously placed into the bag with my postcard and bookmarks. Why? More on that later.
I arrived at my hotel, the AmeriSuites Lake Buena Vista South, at around 10pm. The front desk was deserted at that hour, and check-in took only a few minutes. I was assigned room #126, which is on the first floor right next to the guest laundry facility and side entrance from the building. As a fan of the TV show CSI, I recognized this room as being worthy of the nickname Murder Central; the last room on a floor nearest the exit or stairs is the quickest for criminals to exit after their dastardly deeds.
It was getting late, but I still had some things to do before bed. I had an early day tomorrow and wanted to be prepared. First, I unpacked my water bottle, neck lanyard, WDW park-hopper pass, and everything else I would need to enjoy the Magic Kingdom tomorrow. I also unpacked my camera and made sure I had a fresh set of batteries in it, and unpacked my laptop, plugging in the electric cord and finding a satisfactory way of wrapping my steel security cable around and through the legs of the desk to keep the laptop from walking off.
Next up, I needed snacks. I hopped into my rental car and headed out to the nearest Walgreens I could think of, at SR 192 and International Drive South, for some Pepsi, chocolate milk, pretzels, and animal crackers. As it turned out, however, this Walgreens was not the closest one to my hotel; that distinction belonged to the Walgreens at the Vistana Resort, just a short half-mile or so up SR 535.
When I got back to my hotel, I parked on the side lot, putting my car a mere 50 feet from the door to my room. The hotel's parking lot was practically empty, with only 30 cars or so in it, so I guessed that the hotel was fairly empty. Good news to me; an empty hotel is a quiet hotel, and it's never hard to get a parking space.
I spent about 45 minutes rolling the posters individually and wrapping each one in a bag, then squeezing the whole lot into a couple of bags to carry them with, along with some placards with the Tagrel.com logo on them. Once this bunch of stuff was finished, I pulled back the covers of my king-size bed and drifted off to sleep around 12:30.