Travel Day: SAN to LAX to SEA to PDX

Don't rain on this girl's parade.

July 6, 2009

The state ID war had a clear victor today--yes, me. I ended up getting a California driver’s license with a NY address printed on it. I’m not saying the evil DMV minions didn’t get in their jabs. The picture is truly terrible, and my weight gets printed on the front. But against all odds, I have a license, so I win.

While I was fighting the good fight for the little card that says I am allowed to drive, Dean managed to get all his last-minute transferring paperwork on base done. He also picked up my official military dependent passport, which he handed to me as I jubilantly entered the rental car. First thing I did was the first thing everyone does when they get their passport, which is flip to the photo page. I look almost completely and totally exactly like Barbra Streisand in my picture. I know what you’re thinking, maybe I should be grateful, many a drag queen would love to be in my position. But all I can say is oy vey.

We’d had to stop in San Diego to check in with Dean’s old base and get that administrative stuff done. Then we were headed up to the Northwest to say goodbye to Dean’s family before we left for Japan. We returned the rental car just in time and dashed into the commuter terminal at San Diego airport where despite taking almost everything on my person off save my cotton dress, I kept beeping through the metal detector. They took me to the side where I was thoroughly wanded by a very large female security guard. An aside...is it a rule that the TSA people buy their uniforms two sizes too small? Seriously, look next time you’re at an airport. Anyway, when it looked like it was my bra that was the offending item, she told me she’d have to pat me down and asked if I’d like to step into a private room. I took a quick glance down at the area in question and decided my dress was low cut enough it would be kind of pointless to begin feigning modesty at that point, so I just told her to go to town. Apparently my new underwire is especially metallic. I learned my lesson. No more undergarments whilst traveling for me.

After rushing to get to the airport on time, we endured several delays and ended up getting to Seattle more than a few hours after we were originally slated. We got an apology from our pilot, but it struck me that the airline industry is the only one that can get away with shenanigans like that. Any other company who didn’t deliver as promised would have to offer some kind of compensation other than “oops, our bad” or they’d go out of business. My idea is...open bar on the plane for delayed flights! Most of my great ideas revolve around open bars, actually.

We had booked a rental car online through Advantage, who, while the employees were very nice, had the shabbiest looking fleet of cars I’d ever seen together in one lot. Choosing the nicest, a dinged up Ford Focus, we immediately hit the road to Portland. We checked into the hotel pretty late and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.