On the dock of the bay

Turns out my stress didn't end when I got to the airport this morning -- the travel agency did not actually book my itinerary, so I had no e-ticket waiting for me when I got there, which was an unpleasant surprise. (The way travel gets done at my university is that the department secretary works out an itinerary with the travel agency and gives them the university's "ghost" credit card number to reserve it, simultaneously starting a purchase order and requisition up through the approval process. Once the requisition has been approved by the highest office in line, then the university travel office is supposed to contact the travel agency and actually pay them, thereby finally booking the ticket officially. Somewhere along the way somebody missed a step.)

So I paid about $1500 for a $500 round-trip ticket to San Diego this morning, which made me mad. (On the positive side, I got the exact same itinerary that had been reserved two months ago -- all four flights. Kind of amazing, really.) The second flight today was delayed by an hour because the plane had been diverted two legs earlier for an inflight medical emergency, landing in St. Louis before going on to Austin where it was originally headed.

But you know what? This made it all better:

A cozy room at the Marriott Hotel and Marina ...


... with a balcony view.


It was 78 degrees, so I went for a swim.



When I floated on my back, this is what I saw.


The restorative powers of a sunset walk along the bay ...


... cannot be overestimated.