In California - For the Last Time This Year?

     Let me fill you in on yesterday.  I woke up in St. John's at 4:11am; the alarm had been set for 3:30.....pm(mistake).  Yeah, I know!  Everyone's done that, but I didn't have much time to think about it since I had a 6:00am flight to make.  I put on my clothes, dragged my stuff down to the car, and drove to the airport in the falling snow.  A road-closed detour slowed me down a bit, but I found the rental car return place at the airport, parked, and slipped the keys into the hole in the desk for that purpose, since it was a little before they opened the desk.  At the Air Canada desk the agent checked my bag but could only give me one boarding pass.  I was to get the other two passes at my next stop.  I went through Canadian security and had enough time to get a muffin and a cup of coffee.  Wandering around in the boarding area was this fidgety 300 pounder.  I pegged him as my seat mate.  I was right.  He just couldn't get settled the entire way to Halifax.  Our flight was delayed an hour getting out of St. John's  while they cranked up the de-icer.  Once we got to Halifax I asked where I should go since I was an hour late, and was directed to the American security area where they, of course, asked for my boarding pass.  I didn't have one and was redirected to the United Airlines counter where the agent printed them out.  Back to security.  I got the full treatment - the full body scan plus every section of my backpack swabbed and searched.  I finally made it through and to the gate in time to make the flight to Chicago.  In Chicago the flight to Norfolk was late so I got into home port an hour late, but my bag was there and I got to spend the rest of the day with Joyce.  We had a lovely trout dinner and I got through the chores I needed to so I could leave today.
     My flight today left at noon so it wasn't a problem to get things together in plenty of time.  Of course I left something behind.  You'd think I could get out of town flawlessly by this time, wouldn't you?  So now I'm in San Diego waiting for my flight to San Francisco where I'll get my rental car and drive to Ukiah and a Motel 6.  Tomorrow I'll finish the drive to McKinleyville where the Brown Shrike has been seen this past week.  There was an unconfirmed ebird report of the bird for today, but I haven't heard from John Spahr, Chris Hitt, or Wes Fritz yet as to whether they saw it today.  May tomorrow be ShrikeDay.