Following on from the last post the never ending, relentless conveyor belt of stress continued to deliver. So off we trekked to Boots the Chemist for the antigen test at 14:45 hoping to be on the 16:21 train. A nice young lady expertly swabbed our nostrils and by the time we were home…two negative tests! TFFT!
Permission had been granted by the bill payer Tuesday for me
and Alex to share the cost of buying a DJI mini Pro 3 drone for our trip, an
amazing bit of kit capable of taking 4K 60fps video and 48mp RAW photos. With
her indoors on board I jumped onto Amazon, it was “in stock” and I clicked the
buy button for delivery Wednesday…and there was no sign of it by Thursday. I finally
got to talk to a human after several decades of being passed round the houses.
Between adding it to basket and checking out it had apparently gone out of
stock with no indication of when it would be available. Drat. So we ordered the
cheaper Mini 2, and of course Friday morning I got notification that BOTH were
being delivered. Our road was blocked off for the ubiquitous Platinum Jubilee street
party but the plucky delivery driver made it through. The Mini 2 will be
returned when we get back.
Meanwhile I was frenetically uploading Covid certificates,
vaccination status, Attestation forms, checking in for the flight and the like.
No need to rush, the 16:21 to Manchester Airport was cancelled due to lack of
train crew. The more cynical of you might think there were sickies being pulled
left, right and centre. You might be right.
Time for a beer and an expresso Martini (thanks Syke) and
onto the 18:21 which was thankfully on time. Chatted to a guy on the train from
Minnesota and shared a cab to the hotel with a lad from Darlington who was on
his way to Australia. He shared it to the wrong hotel lol. Got to the hotel bar
at 21:57 to find the kitchen had just closed. Manuel was despatched to the
kitchen to plead our case “why you hit me Mr Fawty?”, but to no avail, and no
Waldorf Salad appeared. Crisps for dinner then…
With the apocalyptic scenes at UK airports this week (hint:
hire and train staff) we ordered a cab and arrived three hours early. Needn’t
have bothered, Manchester Airport was quiet though apparently had drifted
through time to 2001 with bugger all phone signal and no functioning Wi-Fi.
The plane took off on time for the 8 hour flight to Atlanta,
a short delay ensued requiring a crack team of stewardesses armed with a giant
shoe horn and Biblical quantities of Vaseline to get me into the cattle class
seat. An uneventful flight got in early, the hours spent steeling myself against
the torture of Atlanta immigration, bag collection and finding the connection
were frankly wasted. No queues, straight though, connection already on the departure
board, a short train shuttle ride, a three and a half hour wait, boarding last
out of 27 categories of passengers (join the military boys and girls, trumps
all of the diamond encrusted, platinum, regular flyers club brigade) and we were
on the plane. Arrived early at Will Rogers Oklahoma Airport after two hour
flight with bags collected in double quick time. Bravo! The complimentary shuttle
bus needed reminding it was collecting us for the short ride to Wyndham
Gardens. After a 45 minute wait we arrived...33 hours after we left the house.
Mucho confusion about the hotel booking and issues with “card declined” were
eventually resolved and we found ourselves in a President’s Suite. Trust me it’s
not. With the apparently slow selling Shiner Bock no longer available it was
three bottles of Bud and to bed. No energy for Cowboys…I was up for it really. Honestly.
With both drinks vending machines out of order and no water left in the “shop”
I spent half an hour persuading a drinks “fountain” to fill a couple of
bottles. Alex thinks he is having some weird fever dream as he adjusts to
Oklahoma. It’s not Boro, that’s for sure.
Up at 7:00 (13:00 BST) for “breakfast”. Oh dear. Paper
plates and plastic cutlery I can cope with but the four item buffet consisted
of scrambled egg, sausage, biscuits and gravy. The latter are not what you
think UK reader(s), please Google for more. No fruit I fancied either. It was
forced down, Alex declaring the biscuit was a mouthful too far. One of the many
reasons the Mrs will never be invited onto one of these trips. She would
starve.
A rumble of thunder!
A quick check on the Radarscope app and there was a severe warned storm to our
north making steady progress south east, the only one in the US. We leapt
outside for some car park chasing, some lightning, more thunder and sudden
darkness with previously southerly winds being usurped by outflow from the
storm, a 180 degree change. We retreated under the hotel portico with Alex
being attacked by a bird sized hornet to hide from the precip (yep, rain) and
retired to our suite to sort stuff out ready for Bricktown this afternoon and for
me to bash out a quick thousand words of no doubt error filled, misspelt
gibberish for this blog.
The Storm Prediction Centre has been wrestling with this
week’s forecast for a while, a north westerly flow and pooled moisture in the
Plains promising but when and where? This morning’s forecast has progressed
somewhat with a tornado risk for Oklahoma City this evening which might make
our jaunt to Bricktown interesting. And a bonus! With a severe forecast for NW
Oklahoma forecast for tomorrow, and with me, Alex, Peter and Valarie already
here and Cindy and Steve arriving tomorrow Peter’s rest day has been binned and
we are going chasing a day early. Sweeeet!!!
The balance of the forecast looks decent despite much hand wringing on the Stormtrack “state of the season” thread with Thursday single out for severe weather in the central Plains. You pays your money and you takes your chance.
Total miles: 0
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