Two years ago, in March, we had to cancel our Ecuador and Peru trip due to Covid. We went through Jet Blue on the Hopper app because it was a great deal. Minutes before we boarded a plane to JFK in New York, we were warned not to get on the flight because Ecuador and Peru were closing their borders to foreigners so they could attempt to "flatten their curve." Little did we know that it would take almost two years (even though we knew people would be difficult during this time) for the entire world to be somewhat normal and to allow traveling again.
Our points sat in our Jet Blue bank for exactly two years. We were going to try to use them for our trip to Peru last fall, but Jet Blue doesn't have a direct flight to Peru. So, we had to purchase an entire new set of plane tickets with another airline. That trip was fun but obviously could have been more fun without Covid lurking around every corner. It sucked that we had to wear masks everywhere...even outside.
As March creeped closer, I kept reminding Mom that we had to book something soon. She said, yeah, we really do have to make a decision soon. We threw around some ideas in late January and most of February. I wanted to go somewhere warm, but Jet Blue is pretty limited of where they fly. We decided on New York City, DC and staying with Amy and Josh in Pennsylvania. It was easy to decide what we wanted to do with our week vacation since that area of the country has tons of stuff to do. We spent the next couple month planning, deciding and booking.
The Jet Blue website gave us a hard time while purchasing tickets and it made for a very frustrating experience. After more than a day, we eventually got everything to work, picked our seats to and from, purchased some traveler's insurance just in case something goes wrong, had to pay for our bags and finally felt good enough to know that everything was taken care of at that point.
We spent the next couple weeks booking and paying for our hotel, the rental car and some of the activities we planned on doing while in NYC such as a Broadway play, a boat tour, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 Museum and Memorial. I was so excited I could not wait to go and not have to work for a week. The lame part is that not being at work for a week has a terrible price; I will have at least five days' worth of date extensions to do when I got back. I was definitely NOT looking forward to that.
I started gathering up some stuff as the days got closer and closer. I did not want to forget anything. I grabbed all of my electronics including my new selfie stick, my car GPS and all the cords, I got a new bag for my toiletries, set aside my travel books and maps and eventually got out my suitcase that Wade wanted to lay in. My next purchase will be a new suitcase. I want to give the one I've been using back to Dad. I used to have a really nice one and then I let my brother or sister use it and never got it back and it disappeared somewhere.
That Friday morning, I got up at 6:45, rolled out of bed and wandered out to the hallway with my sweats on, my water, watch and cell phone in hand. Ben fed the kitties and I logged on. I did the count and then my data collections, some spinals and imaging. Tammy saw a problem; some of the reviews were missing CPT codes. Uh oh! I wondered how many more were missing codes. None of my data collections were missing them. I had planned on logging off early this afternoon once my phone calls were done to start my vacation sooner. I guess we will see?
I got up and grabbed some yogurt, grapes and half a blueberry bagel, sat down and continued working. The imaging stopped coming over, but PT started to. I worked on those and then Debbie told me to stop for a minute. Jill was sending over PT without CPT codes. Debbie said it was okay to the ones I already sent to the claim managers because I wouldn't have known they were missing. A bunch of PT and imaging had to stay on the other list to be fixed, so no phone calls that afternoon.
I thought Comagine were going to send the correct reviews over with the CPT codes later this afternoon to ruin my day but Debbie said no, it will be added to Monday's reviews. Monday was going to be a "kinda" double Monday with one person missing. Lame, but I'm glad I didn't have to be at work for a week!
As lunch approached, I ate chimichangas, chips and salsa and watched reruns of Friends on TBS as I ate. Afterwards, I finished some loose ends, did my out of office voicemail and email and logged off at 1. I was super stoked to start my vacation early. I got in a shower, dried my hair, put my clean traveling clothes on and spent the rest of the afternoon packing and doing some chores. Ben was at work and Doug had the day off, so he was going to take us to the airport.
I got all of my stuff tetris'd into my suitcase and backpack. I texted Mom to let her know my progress and to see when she going to come into town. She said that Dad was going to drop her off, so we didn't have extra cars in our yard while we were gone. Mom and Dad got there around 3:30 and I told Doug to get ready so we could go soon. We loaded the Escape, I drove, we stopped at the bank so Mom could pull out an extra $200 just in case. Whatever we don't use we will put back in the bank.
We got onto I-5 and headed north. We hoped we didn't get stuck in a lot of traffic between Lacey and Burien since it was Friday afternoon and traffic notoriously sucked during that time frame. JBLM was a little slow but not that bad. It was Tacoma and Fife that were the worst. Burien was a little backed up going down the hill, but it didn't delay us that much. I allowed a bunch of time for us to get there just in case because you just never know.
We merged onto the off ramp and followed the road to SeaTac. We found the JetBlue departures area and I pulled over. Doug complained because I pulled the Escape over to the curb and boxed him in. I told him he was fine. We got our bags out of the back, gave him an awkward hug, told him not to wreck my Escape and went inside as he drove off. The JetBlue counter wasn't open yet because we were super early. Our flight left at 9:09 p.m. and we were there around 5:30 p.m. The JetBlue counter didn't open until 2 hours before our flight supposed to leave. We had to find a place to chill for a while, so we found some seats nearby to hang out until it was time to drop off luggage and get our boarding passes.
About 6:50/7:10, we walked over to the kiosk next to the counter and checked in. We printed our boarding passes and our luggage tags. We took our luggage over to the counter and dropped off our luggage with her. She said we could have done this process sooner, but we didn't know. Neither of us have flown JetBlue before. We went through security, I dumped out my Nalgene, got my passport and boarding pass out and snaked through the line. I had to take my shoes off, my watch, sunglasses, etc. I took my computer out of the bag, and I forgot my car GPS was in my backpack. The backpack had to be screened further because something looked weird on the X-ray. I was willing to bet it was the GPS. He opened the bag and was like, oh, they are protein bars...I thought he was going to bust me for the GPS that I accidentally left in there. The guy looked at them and was like, they make maple donut flavored ones? I said they sure do and told him they were the best kind! He handed me my bag and I met up with mom while I got my shoes on and my stuff back in my back pack. We walked to our new gate, gate S, via the tram. It had changed prior to us getting to the airport.
I told Mom to check in with Doug when we got to our gate and he said he was already back at home and having dinner with Erika and Zach somewhere. He said traffic was bad on the way home and added that we picked a terrible day and time to go to the airport. I told him that it was the best we could do with the choices we had.
We walked to our departure gate just to see where it was and settled in for a bit. I bought Mom a water and was going to get a drink for myself from the Hudson store--but they didn't have any zero-sugar Coke's or Pepsi's, so I just went and put city water into my Nalgene from the reusable bottle water fountain.
I told Mom we should probably eat something since we didn't have dinner yet and she agreed. The S gate really didn't have a lot to choose from so we chose the Greedy Cow. Mom ordered fish and chips and we shared them. I got out my laptop for a bit and worked on my blog as we ate.
We used the restroom one more time and then I called Ben and Trish while we waited to board. We were in group B, and they were several minutes late boarding, so we had to stand there for a while. We finally got on, got situated and managed to get comfortable for our long red eye to New York City.
I sat at the window seat, Mom sat in the middle and a girl, probably in her late 20's, sat on the end near the aisle.
I got my headphones out and I am so glad I brought both the plug in and the wireless ones. You just never know what kind of set up each plane has. Mom failed to bring her plug-in ones, so she didn't get to watch movies on the way there. She really didn't care anyways because she was going to try and sleep. I watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and I was glad it followed the original movies. It was fun seeing the old gang and they did a good job incorporating Harold Ramis posthumously into the movie since he passed away in 2014.
That ate away about two hours of flight time. Somewhere over Winnipeg, I tried sleeping the rest of the flight because I knew were going to lose three hours of sleep and the next day was going to be super long.
I barely got any sleep because it was so uncomfortable, and it was super-hot for some reason, and we even had our fan going above us. Luckily, I didn't have to get up and pee during this flight because it would have been a huge chore getting out and back in. I may have gotten maybe one full hour of sleep during the flight. I was still super stoked to be on my way to NYC for the first time. I want to be a part of it...New York, New York!
Next Adventure: NYC-DC-PA Vacation: Central Park, Sight Seeing, Broadway and Ellen's Stardust (Day 2)
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