stay on target. stay on target

One area of neglect from my last post was the freaky nature of our timing during the Buffalo-to-D.C. return leg. We left the sleeping castle at 7am for an 8:30 Southwest flight – call us crazy (and horribly sleepy). After stopping to fill up the car and grab coffee we headed down the 198, over to the 33, and into the Buffalo-Niagara International Aerodrome. We pulled into the Hertz return area at 7:30, got the car checked in, walked to the Southwest desk to print our passes and drop-off luggage, moved through security, and were standing happily at our gate at precisely 7:41. New record.

When we arrived at BWI we had a planned 40-minute buffer to get from the plane, through baggage, onto a shuttle bus, and over to the MARC station in order to catch the train back into D.C. Since I’d made this run before I knew that neither the shuttles (every 10 minutes) nor the train would present a problem – baggage could have been the weak link. As we came through the glass doors and into the claim area we noted that our flight was unloading junk at the first merry-go-round claim about ten feet to our left. There were only a few folks milling about, and the metal-magic claim wheel is rotating clockwise as we approached from the 4 o’clock position. Without breaking stride, I attack the claim as our single bag rotates through 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock, about 2:30, and directly into my moving target of a hand. It was a thing of beauty. Our inertia took us out the door and deposited us at the MARC shuttle stop a few feet down the sidewalk. After a short wait we hopped aboard the big red bus and minutes later disembark at the train station. I peer at my watch as we walk to our track and notice it’s 10:05am. You might wonder when our train was due in, wouldn’t you? How does 10:13am sound? Shazam!

Everyone gets a two-fer today. First up are Gillian Welch and David Rawlings doing Revelator from the 2001 album Time. After that, if you’re still interested, is a solo acoustic version of The Picture by Jay Farrar.