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Sunday 12th September

sunset over the mountains from a BA flightWe headed across to Seattle with our bikes. The bus to the airport leaves from near University Street - we sorted this out the day before. But when we tried to get our bikes on the bus we were told that the bike carriage zone only begins outside of the city centre free bus zone. No doubt the city planners can't see why anyone would want to use a bike in the city centre when the bus is free. But if you've got a bike to get out to the suburbs to catch a plane, the policy seems a bit dumb. A sorry look persuaded the driver to apply commonsense, fortunately, so we were allowed on straightaway. The ride to the airport (SeaTac) takes you through the usual US urban sprawl, though it's interesting to see the giant hangars and offices of Boeing. At the airport we dutifully wrapped our bike in the shredded remnants of Guy's sleeping mat - the bubbles have been popping ever since we started so it's now no more than a bit of tough plastic (as Steve says - the USA has taken the bubbles out of Guy's life) - and, along with a plastic bike bag supplied by BA (we thought these no longer existed but they do, at the moment, in Seattle!), we wrapped up our bikes. Then we joined a ridiculously long queue for the 'plane. BA had a little queue for Club Class and for World Traveller Plus, but a queue that lasted two hours (of queuing time per person) for the ordinary bulk of the passengers - World Traveller class. Ridiculous!!! I managed to read a substantial chunk of a novel while queueing. Hey, British Airways, why not take a tip from the deli counter at Sainsbury's and give out numbered tickets if you're going to make people queue for such a ridiculously long time?! A pity, since BA handled the bikes very well and the flights were on time or early. The flight back was fun - but unfortunately we didn't apply ourselves to the one problem that we'd been putting off until then - what on earth do we do when we get back to joblessness and (soon) homelessness. The site of mountains in the sunset outside the aeroplane window took our thoughts on an altogether more happy curve - "Where do you think we should go next...?"....

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