6/6-6/7 - travel day!

Travel Day!

The lead up to travel day always requires more time and attention than we think. Even for those of us who have space to stage our packing (and I start months in advance - yes, I am that OCD), there always seems to be something that needs to be taken care of at the last minute.

One of his regular pieces of advice is to pack light. I can't tell you how many times I have repacked, and every time I go over my bag, I remember something that I had forgotten about. I guess my m.o. requires a lot of time and all that repacking or else I would be missing something.

This year, the obsession was over Skratch. Skratch is a product developed by Dr. Alan Lim, a sports physiologist for use on the pro cycling tour (I don't know what cycling team he started off with) that uses a minimal number of ingredients that you know and can pronounce. Walter uses it too. 

On our last two trips, Walter got pulled over by TSA in Syracuse. One time it was because he had an unopened (new) of Skratch. Another time, he had put single-day servings of Skratch into zip-lock bags. And both times, they questioned whether or not it was bomb-making material (I am making up this reason, but it is as likely a justification as any). One time they took him into a private room. We won't speculate what they did to him in there because I don't want to offend anyone. To cover my bases, I had zip-lock bags of Skratch (Walter: thanks for the loan) PLUS new sealed bags with single servings. If they confiscated one or both batches, I would have to buy it in Greece because riding on plain water is an invitation for cramps. (Gramps)

It was a lot of worrying about nothing. The TSA rules seem to change every time I travel. This time, they didn't ask me to remove anything from my bag (laptop, gels) and no one seemed to care that I had lots of Skratch.

The flight to Philly was late but otherwise uneventful and the flight to Athens on a new 787 was grueling. My Fitbit says I got one hour and ten minutes of sleep.

I exited out the rear of the plane down stairs and it is always invigorating to get that hit of warm air and bright sunlight.

It just occurred to me that dignitaries deplane this way, not on jet bridges. Can you see me waving like Tricky Dick?



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