Journey: At rest

[from my travel journal. Edited for content.]

Hawthorne Inn Downtown, rm 310, 2135 hours PDT

I never realized how amourous I feel when I land and enter the airport.

When I got into the airport, a voice mail from Ray let me know how once again the world had changed, and was still the same. It happened while we were in the air. Though we were told nothing about the bombing while in flight, it explains the unfelt “turbulence” which caused our captain to keep the seat-belt light on.

I couldn’t get the rental car. Insufficient credit. So I ended up taking the GrayLine shuttle to the hotel. It felt like a longer ride than it was. The sky was grey and I had a headache. As a result, I didn’t learn much from the trip. I couldn’t get a bearing.

The hotel looked like a hole on the edge of where it sat. Its a high-density Japanese-style design, but there were no tall buildings around it to justify its shape. However, inside…It put the Hampton Inn to shame for amenities and services. It was noon local time, and while I was looking forward to exploring the city. But I was hungry, but for that I was exhausted and felt ill from the headache. I ended up watching a little TV, taking a dump, and eating the snack-pac from the plane. Then I took a nap until dusk.

I woke up at 5pm local, and started calling around to locate Renee. I left one message on one machine; the others were all false leads. Then, I watched more TV while I reconciled maps. Then, I took another short nap.

When I was finally up, I was starving. It was nearly 10pm central and I had no real food since a biscuit on the plane. It was also dark. I considered the likelyhood of my establishing an omni-bearing at night, but my need for food won out over my doubts.

The night clerk was less than friendly and gave me directions to McDonalds. The bus ride had cost me $11. With the other change that I had, I decided to strike out in the opposite direction than the clerk suggested, and find out what $10 could buy me on a Sunday night.

After a few minutes of contemplating the location of the Space Needle, and then discovering that Denny is a baseline road, I had established a local bearing. A “7-11” got me Pepsi and a referral to the “5-Spot Cafe”, which got me a great reuben and soft-cooked fries. I came back to the room to eat after wandering my own course back to the hotel.

The city feels much like Kansas City, but maybe safer. I like it.