Sunday, November 16, 2025

At The House Day 30 Plus - Fine Dining, Cleanup and Driving

John and Angie left just before 7.  I walked up to their what has turned out to be a very reliable parking space with them.  This space has relatively few houses on the street, it is a steep hike up and the street is reasonably wide.


I walked over to Danny Aiello's and had three cafe con leches so when I got back home I was buzzing.  I had a fair amount of work to do before my planned post-midnight departure.  Packing my bike took a while.  It was raining so I never even got a chance to test the new rubber I put on the wheels yesterday.


The plan for the day turned into packing, drive for lunch, get a nap, clean up and drive away.  Andy and Debbie planned to take a day in town tomorrow and on Sunday take the bus and train to Madrid.  The weather forecast for Spain over the next few days was rain and Madrid offered more indoor activities.


One job Andy and I tackled was tarping up the Room 4 bed in case any rain came in the roof.  Before I left a few drops had penetrated and the tarp had kept some drops off.  I also got a bunch of my ESP devices online.


For lunch we drove to Frailes and tried out Restaurante Angelillo.  We were the first customers at a little after 2pm on a Friday.  The food was very good and it may have been the meal highlight of the month.  Our waiter was very good and was adept at using Google Translate.  This place definitely makes the a place to go list.  Reservations required on weekends!


After a long lunch I had hoped to take a long nap but just was not able to get to sleep.  I did "rest" (i.e. watched YouTube and played games in a horizontal position).

When Andy and Debbie were off to bed I said my goodbyes and started my room clean up including 2 washing machine runs.  Somehow I got a little casual on my exit time and realized when I got in the car I needed to not waste any time getting to Madrid.  I got to the TAP counter with about an hour to takeoff; not all that wise when you are travelling with a bike.


On the Lisboa to San Francisco flight I found out that there were a lot of bikes coming out of Malaga because of a 6000 entrants triathlon.  The woman I sat next to said she came first in her age group and was a former Kaiser nurse.  I looked and could not find anyone in the results who looked like her in the possible age groups ... (thinking and rolling eye emojis ... and now a laughing one).  The Malaga flights were limiting the number of bikes on the flights.  Those smaller Iberian peninsula planes do not even have space for modern carryon so I can see 6000 bike being a problem.


The flight to Lisboa went off on time and I think I slept the entire way.  The San Francisco flight boarded a little late and then we sat in the plane for an hour and a half.  Too many bikes or something.  I slept more on these flights than I normally do.  I guess this is one advantage to not sleeping all night.  When I was boarding the San Francisco flight, even though I was in the far corner of the plane I was in boarding group A.  I never get that.  I was in the A line - and could not believe the number of people who though they deserved to board in the Premier or A groups without feing in those groups.  It must have worked in the past but they were throwing those people out of the line.  When A started boarding my line started moving and some lady who was behind me shoves her roller bag in my path and tries to push through.  I made a snarky comment about her going first and she backed off making an excuse that the bag goes where it wants to go.  Later on the plane the woman who sat next to me asked my to change seats so her mother - the  line jumper!! - could sit beside her.  I said no.  Mothers and adult daughters travelling together - in my experience - seem to have an unbelievable sense of entitlement.  She wanted my to move to a interior seat from my window that had an extra three inches; inches I need!  Turns out she was in the wrong seat and was replaced by the triathlete.  Now I am beginning to think the mother-daughter combo spied the best seats in the area and tried to get people to move so they could have them.  The last team I encountered like this asked me to carry their luggage on a plane;  I flatly said no, but my sister got stuck lugging luggage around for an hour.  The noive (in the voice of Three Stooges, Curly).


Back home now to the same weather I just left.  Well, another adventure ends.

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At The House Day 30 Plus - Fine Dining, Cleanup and Driving

John and Angie left just before 7.  I walked up to their what has turned out to be a very reliable parking space with them.  This space has ...