North Yorkshire in March (Journal Included)

We left at 5:50 p.m. There was no traffic at all on the way to BWI. There seemed to be very few departures, in general. We had no trouble pulling up to the door in front of the British Airways desks. We had checked in the night before and already had our boarding passes, so we could go to a fast bag drop aisle. There was no one in front of us and we walked up immediately. We started to go through security and we were surprised to find that we were the only ones there, too. The TSA attendant told us our flight was the only flight out of the whole Pier E that evening. She said nothing was open, so if we wanted to eat or look around, we should stay in the main terminal. She recommended a place called Bill Bateman’s Bistro. We started to walk over there, just to pass the time.

In between Pier D & E, there was an interesting display of Air Force artwork. Then, there was a museum-quality wall of photos and information about aviation in Maryland, including distinguished pilots, airplane factories, the history of BWI, etc. I remember noticing that one pilot featured is a Terp (University of Maryland alumna).

At the restaurant, we split an appetizer of two cheeseburger sliders and a few French fries. The place was decorated with vinyl albums, all of which my husband (henceforth referred to as S) recognized. We went back to security around 7:30 p.m. and there was only one person ahead of us. Neither of us had any trouble getting through. We departed from gate E1.

The flight began boarding at 8:20 p.m., just a tiny bit late. We were happy to find that the plane was not full. An attendant came and told us that the seats in front of us were not taken, so S moved on row up. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” We noticed that the plane wasn’t pulling back from the gate and it was getting late. Then, the plane started getting very hot. We started to hear the attendants explaining that the air conditioning system was malfunctioning and engineers were trying to fix the problem. The pilot came on and said they had gone through all the maintenance procedures, but the engineers had to come and check the indicator lights. The attendants brought around water and started the entertainment system, so we could begin to watch movies. I pulled out my REI keychain thermometer and set it on my tray table. The plane was 95 degrees for quite a while. Eventually, they opened the rear doors of the airplane to try to get cooler air back in the plane. The captain kept providing updates, which went something like, “They’re still working on it.” Finally, around 11:30 p.m., the heating and cooling system was repaired and we took off. The first few minutes we were fine, but soon we hit turbulence that lasted a solid 20 minutes. The flight crew was trying to be cheerful, but one attendant did stumble and cuss. She apologized, laughed a bit, and continued with her work. Eating was very difficult. I got salad, a roll, chicken with gemelli pasta, and a pie of some sort. I set it aside for a while and ate a little bit at a time. I watched Slumdog Millionaire and Madagascar 2. The second half of the flight was smooth and I did manage to sleep for a while.