GA is A-OK

A flight out of JFK at 6 something in the morning means waking up at 4 something in the morning and getting there a bit before 5 in the morning.  The reasons for taking such an early flight are to avoid crowds and get to the destination to play the rest of the day.  The airport had some people, but not many, which was a score.  We were even whisked through the security line, being directed to the pre-check-in line where you don't have to take off your shoes or jackets and you don't have to take out your laptop.  In this line was a guard with his dog.  This sniffed around, so cute and adorable.  Then he began to follow Eddie.  He sniffed Eddie's leg and they became fast friends with Eddie following me and the dog following him.  The people behind Eddie were laughing at him as the guard called the dog's name and the dog retreated, surely sad that he could not travel with his new found companion.  Heh heh.

Right after security, we found bagels.  We were in a different terminal from last time, and this one had real bagels and butter and it was a delicious breakfast. As we made our way to our gate, we started to board.  Good timing. Eddie and I are always in Zone 3, so everyone boards before us.  We waited until the crowd at the gate slimmed down and hopped onto the end of the line.  As we waited on the line at the bottom of the ramp to get into the tunnel thingie to board, we heard someone shouting in a rush that the other hallway was the right hallway.  The corridor that had been roped off when we passed it was the one to our plane.

Everyone in pre-boarding, first class, elite membership, Zone 1, and Zone 2 had gotten onto the wrong plane.  We Zone 3'ers headed into the correct tunnel thingie as the pilot and one crew member stood there, saying they were wondering where everyone was.  We had to wait until everyone got off of the wrong plane and onto our line to board.

When we were finally on the plane, we got blankets handed to us by a very efficient flight attendant who has a voice for radio.  There were about five people in the two rows in front of us who simply did not understand the concept of "sit where your boarding pass tells you to sit" and everyone had to shuffle multiple times, including a final time to let an unaccompanied minor sit in her assigned seat (though I don't think the fact that she was unaccompanied should have been announced to the entire plane).  Then?  Part of something broke off.  I don't know what it was but it was a long plastic thingie.  The radio flight attendant picked it up, looked at it from several angles, looked around the plane, and then simply took it with him to the back.  That made me feel real safe.

With all the switching of planes and seats, we were about 45 minutes late in landing.  Our brother-in-law picked us up and got us to his house and we were finally on vacation!  We had a spectacular July 4 (after napping) filled with food, games, and fireworks.  Me and Eddie's mom went head to head on a ball toss game that took way longer than it should have.  We also avoided bugs together.  It's a fun hobby.  Later on, I watched a Spades game unfold.  This is a card game I despise because a lot of the winning is based on predicting the future.  But then I got talked into playing with Eddie over my shoulder to help.  I think I won but I don't really know.  So let's say that I did because I like winning.

When time for the fireworks came, we headed to a shopping center parking lot to watch fireworks being set off from a nearby golf course.  I was freezing because why wouldn't I be cold in the summer in Georgia?

Terminal 2 wins over Terminal 4

Freezing cold.

Our niece's Welcome sign. I am wearing clothes, though it looks like I might not be.

Spades.  This is a good hand.  Or not.  I still have no clue.

The rest of our trip was just as fun and jam-packed.  We went to the arcade where our niece hit a points jackpot and managed to rack up thousands of points to exchange for a light up sign.  I hit up the claw machine that said everyone was guaranteed to win because I have an obsession with claw machines and I'm not very good at them, so a guaranteed win is my kind of thing.  I chomped on a bunch of candy for the rest of our arcade play.  Winning tastes good.

The arcade also had bumper "cars" and laser tag.  Eddie and his sister did the bumper cars.  I watched because back in January, I was involuntarily involved in real life bumper cars, and my back doesn't seem up for a game that involves possible whiplash, especially when the two Everything Is A Competition Siblings are involved.

Laser tag was uh-may-zing! I've never played before, but since there were only four of us (me, Eddie, his sister, and our brother-in-law), I was pretty safe in catching on.  Then a fifth person joined in, a little kid who was flying solo.  We played in teams, girls versus boys.  The guy giving us directions asked if we were really sure we wanted to play in teams.  The Everything Is A Competition Siblings said yes of course we must play teams.  I wanted to play in teams, too, because I really had no idea what I was doing.  

However, I listen and follow directions really well.  So when the game started, while Eddie was on the second floor trying to pick us off every time we recharged, I was running back to his base, shooting at the target.  Hitting a person is 25 points.  Hitting the base is 100.  I kept shooting at it until my power ran out and I would have to go recharge.  Then do it again.  The guy who gave us the instructions was in there, yelling out to both teams who was winning and where we should go to catch up.  He was mostly telling the red team that they needed points desperately.  Every time I ran to the red team base, he was like, keep pointing and don't stop.  Heh heh.  I liked this guy. 

The only thing that got me down was that darn little kid.  Everywhere I went, he was there.  He kept shooting me and shooting me and I couldn't shake him whenever he caught me until he had to recharge.  He would simply empty out his rounds by stalking me every time he saw me and he saw me a lot. 

Very fashionable with my phaser

In the end, the girls won.  We had the smaller team and we still won.  Oh, and I was the high scorer of the game, so now laser tag is my most favorite game in the world.

In case you can't read that, it's 16,315 points for me. Yeah, that's right. 

We also went to the zoo. Our niece was excited to go, but really, Eddie had the time of his life.  Something about animals really makes him happy from watching those shows on NatGeo to answering all the questions in the animal categories in Jeopardy! correctly.  We saw a lot of animals. Some of them smelled really bad.  Eddie fed a giraffe.  Giraffes are really large.  The gal working at the giraffe feeding platform told me to think of them simply as really big cows.  Okay then.

There was also a bird house.  We walked in.  There was a back door through which you could see all the birds.  I said, If there are birds out in the open flying around, I am not going out there.  Eddie's mom was close behind me, thinking the same thing.  They all walked out first and laughed while pointing at this sign:

To which I responded, I'm out, and went back inside.  We could still see the birds from there, and it was pretty cool.

Gorillas.  Orangutans.  Elephants. Zebras. Tigers. Pandas. Reptiles. We saw them all.

Meerkats and Me

Not a real reptile

Gorillas behind us

Turtles. But I thought this bike was cooler.

Then I had some cotton candy

and hung out with my favorite kind of children.

Quiet. Stationary. Nice.

Then came the feel-bad-about-yourself part of the experience:

For shame! But at least we were on display!

And to top it off, a train ride.

I don't know what he's supposed to be other than terrifying.

I surprised myself by liking the zoo even more than I thought I would.  Good times.

We all also went bowling.  By "we" I mean they all bowled and I watched because bowling and back pain do not play well together. You know who do play well together? Little old ladies. Eddie's sister said she overheard them ask if they could play half a game. They played a full one.

Everything else we did was low key and relaxing. 

Sunny days

Child

Creepy

Swing!

Then it was time to pack and head home.

Why we need many suitcases.  His shoes take up an entire bag.  And that's just one pair.

Our flight was on time.  Our flight was delayed.  Our flight was on time.  Our flight was delayed.  We got to the airport and our flight was back on time while we were in security in a long line.  Then the two TSA agents at the front of the lines we were on got all nasty when informing us only one of their two lines could accept mobile boarding passes.  They were more snippy than clear, so a bunch of us stood there, looking around, almost moving out of the line and then not because we didn't know where to go until they yelled at us again.  We moved to another line and I looked up and around and asked, Did I miss a sign that says that?  And Eddie was like, No, there's no sign.  Apparently, we were supposed to simply know it.

The agent after that was a little snippy, too, but only to people who were clearly not listening to her instructions, which she was repeating over and over.  She told us not to leave our bags until they went onto the conveyer belt because no one else was going to push them through.  At that moment, a woman tried to walk away from a bag on the table.  The agent was like, And where are you going?  The woman pushed her bag on the table but not on the belt and tried to move again.  Seriously, that must be exasperating.  After that, the agent told us that people 74 and older did not have to remove their jackets and shoes, and if we felt 74, we should do some stretching.  Heh heh.

We went through the scanner and I got stopped.  The guy asked if I had anything in my pockets.  I said no.  Then he looked down and said, Oh you've got on fancy pants.  I said, Oh no I didn't realize they were fancy.  Another female agent told me she was going to check my pockets and I was like, sure thing, and then she wiped my hands and we waited for a machine to tell me I was clean.  While we waited, Eddie got stopped, too, and I was like, Oh no he has on fancy pants too!  We both had pants with designs on them that the scanner clearly did not like, but the agent at the machine told me not to worry. I apparently sounded really distressed about the whole fancy pants.  Incidentally, we wore the same pants on the flight out from JFK with no issue, so ATL and JFK have different ideas about pants and their level of fancy.

We got to the gate on time!  Then our flight was delayed!  An hour.  Then another.  Then a half.  It was all weather related. This is another reason wind is my least favorite weather.

To make up for the delays, Delta rolled out a cart of free snacks.  Everyone pounced all at once.  We waited and then Eddie got a Sprite for me. Later on, we got some pretzels.

Then to pass the time, we watched two people who worked at the airport rescue a helium balloon from the ceiling using a broom.  At one point, one of them almost hit a lady in the face with the broom.  It was most entertaining.  Okay, it was the only source of entertainment.

We finally boarded and sat and took off and landed and upon entering the JFK area, the turbulence rocked the plane and we flew through thick fog and more bumps and fog and more bumps and more until we landed, at which point I separated myself from Eddie, releasing my claw-like grip of terror.  We were about three hours later than we were supposed to be, but really, I was just happy to be home.  And in one piece.

By the way, this is me and my "little" niece. 

She's about an inch taller than me.