収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Thanksgiving triplog #2
Hanover, MD · Sat, 22 Nov 2025. 7:15am.

Our red-eye flight from San Francisco last night was tough. We were late leaving, which I didn't exactly mind— no risk of missing connections— except for the fact it meant more time sitting in an uncomfortable seat. We even had seats in Southwest's not-yet-launched preferred seating section. They're normal seats but with maybe 2" of extra leg room. The extra leg room was nice but the real problem is that the seats are too short. There's not enough seat to them.

I was confident about this red-eye flight after our last one, a red-eye flight to Toronto in August, went well. Ah, but on that flight we had first class seats on United. This time we were on Southwest, with its too-short seat bottoms. I know from lots of experience those make me squirmy within just 2 hours. I shouldn't have been so sanguine about committing to one for 5.5 hours. The uncomfortable seat meant I couldn't fall asleep for several hours. And then I slept for maybe 1 hour.

Things flowed smoothly at BWI airport upon arrival. Hawk and I got off the plane just before 6:00am. I shambled toward the nearest bathroom to use the toilet and splash some water on my face. We weren't in a rush, but we were happy that the shuttle bus to the rental car depot departed just after we boarded. Standing around while blinking the sleep out of your eyes is one thing, standing around waiting on someone else is different.

The bus rolled through the pre-dawn darkness at 6:20am. Shouldn't the sky be getting light by now? I wondered. Alas sunrise wouldn't be until 7:00, and with the clouds and drizzling rain it might be hard to notice.

There were no lines at car rental. Yay. Of course there were also almost no people at car rental. But a helpful staffer in the garage pointed us where to go to pick a car. We could take any from our category. We looked at a few and chose a Mazda CX-5. It's similar to the Mazda CX-50 we rented on our trip in Georgia back in April. Our good experience with that car is why we picked this one. If nothing else it has heated seats, which are a big help for Hawk on any trip and a help for me on longer drives.

Which brings me to where we are right now. We're parked in front of a Wawa convenience store. Once clear of the airport we headed straight for breakfast... and for us, for breakfast, a good convenience store is better than just about anything. Wawa, a chain that's been a fixture in the Baltimore area for decades already (even though it started nearly Philadelphia), offers decent fresh food from its short-order kitchen and has a great selection of drinks.

Now here sit eating breakfast in the front seats of our car. Dawn has finally broken around us, though it's hard to tell. The sky went from dark to... mostly-dark... while it continues to drizzle. We'll chill here another 30 minutes or so while waiting for a reasonable time to visit one of Hawk's college friends later this morning.