Getting to Redmond, WA was both better and worse than expected. First, the good points. My lovely brother was back in UK in time for me to leave my car at his place while he provided taxi-service to Heathrow, which was a huge relief. United Airlines has good customer service. The flights were not too bouncy (though we did have turbulence over the north Atlantic) and very delicately landed. Both flights were fast.
The clouds cleared over Greenland. So beautiful. It's the only cold place I would like to visit, except for the Antarctic of course. Most of it was very smooth sweeps of snow-covered hills, but the west coast was free of snow and a marvellous sight, with superbly rocky examples of Slartibartfast's designs. Canada was cloudy again so I tried the films and video, sadly all crap except one episode of House which I'd already seen.
The not-so-good points. Chariot was almost left at Heathrow, and only rescued because the cabin crew noticed it was still outside the door when they were preparing for take-off. We landed in Chicago O'Hare Terminal 5 almost an hour early, with loads of time to get the connecting flight to Seattle from Terminal 1. However, I'd not booked for the immediately-connecting flight because there are so often problems with the wheelchair and assistance, and so it was this time. Chariot was removed with the rest of the baggage, in spite of instructions on its label, so someone had to find it and return it to the plane. There was still just enough time to catch the connection, so I mentioned to the Assistance guy that I wanted to change my flight. He was carrying my bag: suddenly he swerved off through a staff-only gate, and came back to say he'd checked it in (er, security?!); very handy and quick but he'd forgotten that I wanted to change flight. So he thought it would be easier to do that from Terminal 1. We went to Terminal 1 and spoke to the check-in people - who said there were seats and enough time, but did I want to check in baggage? Yes? No problem. Where was it? Oh dear. No way to get it back in time.
Ah well, I could pay for wifi and plug laptop in at the internet area. (Assistance guy thought I should stay in the Speshul^WSpecial Assistance lounge where there was tv, but I escaped. American tv. Two of them, one on each side of the room. On different channels. arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.)
Unfortunately, the next flight was delayed. The delay gradually increased. Not their fault - the regular flight crew were coming in from Newark, or would have been if the north-east hadn't been closed for weather. Of course, if I'd known there would be more than 8 hours to wait, I'd have gone exploring instead of hanging around the airport. It's a very boring airport, and even more so when everything shuts at 9pm. Everything including food and drink.
Finally another crew was found, over four hours late. There was another delay when they were ready because the plane wasn't. Not fuelled. Odd, after all that waiting. The first officer explained that United had outsourced fuelling, and it's much slower now. He also apologised for various other cost-cutting things (but hey, who needs a free-as-in-goes-on-the-fare mouthful of pretzels wrapped in a whole bag of planet-killing plastic?). He also said they'd be taking it as fast as was safe because the crew of this SeaTac Express was Seattle-based and they wanted to get home. Fine by me.
Excellent flight. Chicago from the air at night is very pretty indeed, all gold and silver sparkly. Over the mountains was cloudy, but on the approach to Seattle the sky cleared and it was light enough to see the land: dark hills and shining little towns in the valleys between.
The taxi to Redmond cost 65 dollars. For 14 miles, that was very ouch; I suppose being after midnight made it higher.
The Marriott staff were great. Knew who I was, asked if I minded having a king-size bed, decided to change my room to a more accessible one (still has a king-size bed, with six pillows laid out for a threesome ahem). There's no kettle, only a coffee machine with good ground coffee; I wasn't planning to drink American tea anyway :). And a shower. Ohhhh shower.
So, after a journey lasting nearly 30 hours, I am ...
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