On Our Way - with a few stops

We're sitting in the Dulles Polaris lounge. I could live here! It has private rooms with showers. There's even a sleep room with white noise.

There's a bar and restaurant, gratis.

Comfy chairs

amd best ever Lilly cappuccino machine.

Back in the days of my working life, I spent lots of downtime in various airline lounges - this takes Privilege to a whole new level. 

This is substantial payback for the months of isolation and worry, of missing time with family and friends. We earned this hour or two.

We're in hour 12 of this almost 24 hr journey. I was up at 4:15 and by 5:15 convinced Philip we should off-load his almost 50 lbs suitcase into a smaller case. 15 mins before the Uber driver arrives we're grabbing and slamming into the 2nd suitcase. Why i couldn't have had this inspiration 12 hrs earlier is beyond me.

The Lexington plane was delayed by 1+ hrs due to mechanical problems, meaning we missed our 50 min connection in Chicago. When we deplaned, Philip was 2nd off the plane. By the time i was back in the waiting room he and United rebooked us on a later flight. That never happens to me! I'd be delayed 24 hrs and headed home. Philip is a great traveling companion. I've seen him do the same in a busy Milano train station back in the day when English wasn't favored.