Flying Rocks!

One of the reasons I love Long Beach Airport is because it's easy to tell when it's close to boarding time; you can watch your incoming plane land. You can see it roaring past on the run way before it turns around and makes a bee line for the gate.

After the incoming passengers exit the craft, you stroll right out and hop on.

I appreciate the pilots who heed this sign:

If they don't, it sounds as if they're flying through our living room

Here's a view of downtown Long Beach that I don't see every day.

I was thinking of my brother Ken as we flew past City Hall where he works.

Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix is a lot bigger:

Here's a picture of a happy Bob moments before he discovered that his luggage was missing:

I ran over to Baggage Relations to report the errant suitcase while he waited for his mom and sister's flight to arrive.

After I returned with claim papers in hand 10 minutes later, he checked the baggage carousel one more time.

He at last located the pancake that once was his suitcase. It had finally been vomited up from baggage hell.

Clearly something large had run over it; something extremely large. It was not a pretty sight.

I trotted back over to Baggage Relations with the recovered, though mortally wounded, bag.

They took one look at it and offered me a new one. When I accepted, they ran to the back, grabbed a nifty new bag, and I was good to go.

Oh, that was after I unpacked the dead bag in a corner of the claim area. They needed the bag that no longer lived for evidence of the crime against it.

Bob was overjoyed with the new aquisition. He had been in the market for a new suitcase anyway.

While I was frolicking in the land of departed baggage, Nellie and Merilyn arrived and successfully claimed their baggage.

Then we were off to get the car.

I had reserved a full size car on line last night. They upgraded us to a premium size (reservations are a wonderful thing in car land) then, because they were short handed and couldn't get a car up to us fast enough, they lead us over to this nifty Chrysler Pacifica SUV.

Score!

We made our way through Phoenix "traffic" to our hotel.

This is what I want to see at the end of a day of flying:

The reunion is tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.