Flores - December 2005

Pre trip November 30, 2005- December 1, 2005

Cast of Characters: Ray Flores - 27 years old

I left Temple on the Amtrak bound for Dallas Union station at 12:45 Central Time. The train ride was very smooth in the beginning. Well my plans changed a little bit as we had some problems with freight trains in Fort Worth. The amtrak was blocked in and the freight trains were not fast. The train was running 2 hours behind the scheduled time so once we arrived at Fort Worth I decided to disembark and board the Inter City train and rode to Irving.

My cousin picked me up and we went over to some relatives houses and I got some supper. They went to Lowe's to pick put a Christmas tree. It was getting late so I found a pillow and bed and off to bed I went. The thought of getting up at 4:00 am in the morning was really not sitting well so I set my cell phone for 4.

I woke up at 3:00 busting with excitement. My cousin was right when he said it would only take 10 to 15 minutes to get me to the airport. American Airline made a big stink about me being in the queue 90 minutes before my flight since I have to check luggage. I walked inside and printed my boarding pass at the kiosk but the luggage tag would not print until an employee was behind the counter. My next issue came when I tried to locate a security check point. Well I was in terminal D near entrance D23. I began walking and found a checkpoint, but it was only for employees so I was told to walk down to D 18. My body is not made to walk this far at 4:30 in the morning. Found a checkpoint and got through within about 5 minutes. The only problem was that they wanted to rescan my carry on (the TSA agent did not understand my breathing machine and wanted another look). Then I had to walk all the way back down to gate D24.

I was in too much of a hurry to actually sit down and eat breakfast. The plane was just unloading when I had arrived, so I was relieved to see it there. I was boarded at 5:40 in Zone 6. I had a window seat about 4 rows back of first class. It was still very dark outside when we pushed back so I did not get to see much.

Next: Day 1 continued - Ray gets in - Watch out Disney!!

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