Saturday, December 11th, 2004
Vancouver to Baton Rouge, LA

I took my first-ever flight by myself from Vancouver to Dallas and then caught a connecting flight to Baton Rouge on a smaller regional jet. I thought the small plane would be a much worse ride than the bigger plane, but it actually wasn’t bad and took only an hour from Dallas to Baton Rouge.

I met a nice lady in line at the Vancouver airport named Janice Hutchison. She was going to Orlando with her husband and two kids. It was quite funny that she ened up sitting next to me on the plane and was really nice and squeezed my hand when we were taking off. She and her husband were both accountants and I gave her my card.

The Dallas airport was huge and I had to talk from about A37 to A2 and then take a shuttle bus from the main terminal to the smaller one for the small jet.  I met two nice guys waiting for the BR flight. One was Chris who was a civil engineer and one was Cory who worked for the State Police as a technician and instructor for the Breathalizer program. We were talking about how they’re filming the Dukes of Hazzard in BR and how the folks in the movie are being seen around town.  They were nice guys and it helped pass the time chatting with them.  They asked me how I was after the flight when we were getting our luggage.

I got a rental car and it ended up being a PT Cruiser, which is a little like driving a Hot Wheels car.  It actually drives pretty well. 

Emily wasn’t home when I got there but her mom was, so she showed me around their house – it’s huge and they have tons of cats in every room! ha!  There’s only one in the room I’m staying in and he’s a real cuddler – his name is Brendan and is a tuxedo cat.  I took mom and Emily out for dinner at the Golden Dragon – it was so good!  My stomach was still a bit woozy from the anxiety of the trip, so I didn’t each much.  I’ll have to go back before I leave!  Emily stayed in the room chatting until I couldn’t stay awake anymore.