Forever Young: A Disneyland Trip 50 Years in the Making COMPLETED 1/16/16 About This Page:

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We are back and I’ve gotten the first day’s photos edited, so it’s time to start this tale. If you are just now joining in and would like more background, you can read my pre-trip report here.
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...d-10-13-a.html

Tuesday, October 6 – Travel Day Part

We made it to bed a little before 10:30 on Monday night. I woke up a couple of times but basically slept well. I actually woke up about ten minutes before the alarm and lay in bed ticking off a list of what needed to be done in order for us to leave on time. At 3:45, I started getting ready. Luke got up shortly after I got in the shower. I revised our packing, adding a second carryon and shuffled some stuff around. We were both ready by 5:00, checked the house one last time, and took out the final bag of trash to the toter. Luke packed the Edge and set the GPS for the Crowne Plaza in Louisville where we’d be parking the car for the week. This hotel is located near the airport and offers a free shuttle if you pay to park.

We made our first stop, a tradition for us, at McDonald’s for two large Cokes for the road. Officially, we were on the road by 5:25. It was very dark still. Sunrise began somewhere in the Hoosier National Forest. So beautiful! Luke and I don’t usually get to see sunrises as we not morning people. It was also a bit foggy this morning. As I pulled the camera out to get a few photos, I realized I had forgotten to charge the camera battery. The meter was showing 19% power left. Don’t worry. I still managed 100+ photos this day.

















About a half hour out of Louisville, we needed a bio break, so we stopped in Corydon where we also purchased a couple of Snickers bars. The GPS got us to Crowne Plaza, and since we’d already prepaid online for parking,





Luke pulled into an open spot in front of the hotel. He went inside per the directions on the website. While he was taking care of the reservation and getting a parking tag, I repacked my Kindle, the camera, and our travel docs. I also noticed a shuttle pull up to the portico and soon the driver was helping us with our bags, and then we were off to the airport, a very short drive of less than five minutes. We were dropped off at SWA and rolled our way to bag check, which was very quick with only to checked bags.

Each of us toted one carryon until we reached security where we went separate ways. Luke headed into the regular line and I walked ahead to the TSA Pe-check. No one was in front of me until I got to the scanners. The gentleman in front of me was confused and the TSA agent had to repeat directions several times. As soon as his bags went through, I sent both of ours on through. But the poor gentleman tried to walk through the scanner with a fanny pack still on. Oops! Of course, he was sent back. Fortunate for me, the TSA agent called for me to move on through the scanner. That did mean though that I had to move his other bags out of the way in order to reach my own. Honestly, I felt sorry for this gentleman as he was trying, but I think there might have been a language barrier. Thank goodness Louisville’s airport is not huge and there were only three of us now in pre-check.

I found a bench for the bags and waited for Luke. It took him another five to ten minutes to join me. While he put his shoes back on, I went to the restroom. Then we searched for some breakfast on the way to our gate. First, we stopped at a Starbucks, but this one had very little in food options, so we moved on to gate B17. I explored the shop nearby, but nothing appealed to me or was crazy expensive (e.g. a breakfast bar for $5.99). Luke had seen a Quizno’s, so I walked back a little further. When I saw acceptable breakfast items, I called him for his order. He got a bacon, egg, and cheddar flatbread. I got the same only as a wheat sub. I also grabbed a bottle of Coke. Both sandwiches were delicious, though mine was a little more than I could finish. Luke took care of the last couple of bites for me. With an hour before our flight, we kept busy with e-mails, Facebook, and chatting. About 20 minutes before boarding was to begin, I made another restroom stop. Luke waited until five minutes prior, so when he came back out, I was already in line at A38 and A39.

Once on the plane, Luke found seats in Row 11 seats D and E with his seat at the window and mine in the middle (another tradition as Stefanie always liked the aisle seat). We were eventually joined by an older, distinguished gentleman who sanitized his whole area, armrests, seatbelt, seat back tray table, etc. Kind of wish I had thought of that. Due to the fog I mentioned earlier, the flight was delayed by 15 minutes. But our pilot assured us we would make it up, and said he even hoped to arrive five minutes early. The flight was uneventful, the best kind. I read and napped. Snacks included toasted crackers and roasted peanuts with orange juice for both of us.

Our pilot was good to his word, and even with heavier fog and cloud cover over Denver, we landed right at 11:27 only two minutes late. I marveled at the beautiful patchwork fields in this area of the country. Since we were connecting through to LAX, we were told to remain in our seats until everyone else had deplaned. In the end only three of us were left for the head count. Shortly, after the head count was taken, a flight attendant told u there had been a change in plans. We were going to deplane and head two gates away to another SWA plane. We kept asking SWA folks if we’d have time for restrooms breaks. The answer each time was shoulder shrugs until the last one told us, “Sure!” So we flew back to the restroom. The men’s restroom was further away due to remodeling, so I beat him to our new gate. The other through passenger let me know we’d board first and that we would need to show our photo ID since we no longer had passes. Until our turn, we enjoyed the humorous antics of the ticket taker at the gate next to ours.

As soon as those in wheelchairs were boarded, we three from the original flight were sent through. We got row 2 seats D and E, sitting in the same spots. Once again we were joined by a gentleman in the aisle seat. Since this flight and the previous one did not have Wifi, I spend the time on board catching up on notes while Luke used his new Bose noise-cancelling headphones I got him last Christmas to listen to music. Same snacks and juices with the addition of one of the Snickers bars which we shared. Off and on there was some mild turbulence, but nothing even mildly scary. I wished we had been able to track our flight so I would have known for sure that we were over the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. In fact at one point, Luke and I noticed some kind of huge reflective things, but no idea what they were. I didn’t check the time when we landed, but according to our pilot we were on time.

NEXT: Experiencing Los Angeles or What can be seen from LAX