Vacation '14, Day 8: Home Again
Aug. 20th, 2014 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingI am writing this one day after the fact, but oh well, so it goes.
My flight from Bemidji left at 12:30ish, so Mom, Dad, and I left the island at 10:45 so as to reach the airport in plenty of time. Bemidji is a very dinky airport, but their staff are very, shall we say, careful, so getting through security takes a while. I suspect this may be because they are such a dinky airport. The Ithaca airport, for all its tiny size, gets a fair amount of traffic -- it is served by THREE airlines! *gasp shock awe* -- and so their staff are a lot more practiced and efficient.
I had a three-hour layover in the Twin Cities, during which I ate lunch, did a couple crosswords, and read a chunk of The Iroquois by Dean R. Snow. (I have been on a local history kick lately.) Then, right after I boarded the plane to Detroit, the captain announced that a line of thunderstorms was moving over Detroit, which meant planes currently in the air couldn't land, which meant planes currently on the ground but intending to head for Detroit weren't allowed to take off; this is, I believe, known as a ground stop. Anyway, we sat at the gate for about 45 minutes, and ended up taking off almost exactly one hour late.
I had a scheduled two-hour layover in Detroit (which is more like one and a half, really, since layovers are counted with reference to departure time rather than boarding time), so even after losing an hour to the weather I still had time to run and grab some dinner -- a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and pickles, from Fuddruckers, mmmmmm -- and make it to my assigned gate with fifteen minutes to spare. The flight into Ithaca was smooth and on time, and my suitcase (which I had voluntarily checked in the Twin Cities, since the flight was full and they didn't have enough room in the overhead compartments) was waiting for me at baggage claim.
Then I discovered my car battery was dead.
*headdesk*
Fortunately the guy staffing the parking lot ticket payment booth was just about to get off-shift, and he offered to give me a jump-start. I got my jumper cables out, he duly drove over and fastened them (and now I know how to do that myself in the hopefully unlikely event of another dead battery), and got me going again. I then spent over half an hour driving randomly around the greater Ithaca area, to make sure I got the battery recharged enough to be able to start the car again today. (I haven't checked that yet, but I need to go buy groceries this afternoon or evening, so fingers crossed!)
I think what happened is that when I parked, I turned on one of the auxiliary ceiling lights by the rear-view mirror to make sure I hadn't left anything in the car. Then I forgot to turn it off and didn't notice the light since it's pretty faint and I was parked close to a street-light. But even a small, faint light bulb will drain a car battery over the course of a week, so whoops.
-----
In other news, all my peppers survived my absence! Actually -- and this is the really crazy part -- I seem to have more peppers than when I left. Last week I took the bitten-off top half of the much-abused pepper my mom brought me and stuck its stem into the empty pot that used to hold a completely uprooted pepper. And I think it has grown new roots! At any rate, its leaves are all still green and healthy-looking rather than wilted and shriveled, so I'm pretty sure it's been getting water and nutrients from somewhere, and it is sitting upright in a patch of soil, so... we'll see!
My flight from Bemidji left at 12:30ish, so Mom, Dad, and I left the island at 10:45 so as to reach the airport in plenty of time. Bemidji is a very dinky airport, but their staff are very, shall we say, careful, so getting through security takes a while. I suspect this may be because they are such a dinky airport. The Ithaca airport, for all its tiny size, gets a fair amount of traffic -- it is served by THREE airlines! *gasp shock awe* -- and so their staff are a lot more practiced and efficient.
I had a three-hour layover in the Twin Cities, during which I ate lunch, did a couple crosswords, and read a chunk of The Iroquois by Dean R. Snow. (I have been on a local history kick lately.) Then, right after I boarded the plane to Detroit, the captain announced that a line of thunderstorms was moving over Detroit, which meant planes currently in the air couldn't land, which meant planes currently on the ground but intending to head for Detroit weren't allowed to take off; this is, I believe, known as a ground stop. Anyway, we sat at the gate for about 45 minutes, and ended up taking off almost exactly one hour late.
I had a scheduled two-hour layover in Detroit (which is more like one and a half, really, since layovers are counted with reference to departure time rather than boarding time), so even after losing an hour to the weather I still had time to run and grab some dinner -- a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and pickles, from Fuddruckers, mmmmmm -- and make it to my assigned gate with fifteen minutes to spare. The flight into Ithaca was smooth and on time, and my suitcase (which I had voluntarily checked in the Twin Cities, since the flight was full and they didn't have enough room in the overhead compartments) was waiting for me at baggage claim.
Then I discovered my car battery was dead.
*headdesk*
Fortunately the guy staffing the parking lot ticket payment booth was just about to get off-shift, and he offered to give me a jump-start. I got my jumper cables out, he duly drove over and fastened them (and now I know how to do that myself in the hopefully unlikely event of another dead battery), and got me going again. I then spent over half an hour driving randomly around the greater Ithaca area, to make sure I got the battery recharged enough to be able to start the car again today. (I haven't checked that yet, but I need to go buy groceries this afternoon or evening, so fingers crossed!)
I think what happened is that when I parked, I turned on one of the auxiliary ceiling lights by the rear-view mirror to make sure I hadn't left anything in the car. Then I forgot to turn it off and didn't notice the light since it's pretty faint and I was parked close to a street-light. But even a small, faint light bulb will drain a car battery over the course of a week, so whoops.
-----
In other news, all my peppers survived my absence! Actually -- and this is the really crazy part -- I seem to have more peppers than when I left. Last week I took the bitten-off top half of the much-abused pepper my mom brought me and stuck its stem into the empty pot that used to hold a completely uprooted pepper. And I think it has grown new roots! At any rate, its leaves are all still green and healthy-looking rather than wilted and shriveled, so I'm pretty sure it's been getting water and nutrients from somewhere, and it is sitting upright in a patch of soil, so... we'll see!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-20 10:42 pm (UTC)This would not have helped in your instance but it might be of use if you don't use a car too often. Our car gets used once a week, not enough to keep the battery fully charged. To prevent it draining this there's an adapter attached to the battery and we plug it into a trickle charger once a week. Same adapters have been attached to the batteries in the bikes. The neighbours have started doing the same thing with their cars.
The big drawback is that you will need to have the car in extension lead reach of a power point to do this, so not terribly helpful if you park on the street.
Yay! The peppers survived!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-20 11:20 pm (UTC)Hmm. I will mention that battery adapter to my parents, though I think they do use both cars frequently enough that battery drainage is not an issue.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-21 01:44 am (UTC)