Back in Birmingham

A good day to fly yesterday. We obviously beat the Thanksgiving rush by flying Sunday. Our biggest delay was when a TSA screener in SEA spotted the doll in our roll-aboard. "I don't see no kids here," he muttered to a colleague while peering at the x-ray, but the present from Uncle Dave and Aunt Dana passed inspection the second time around.

SEA-ORD was in a 757-200. The 24-seat F section wasn't quite full and we dozed a bit after breakfast. There was a fair walk from our arrival to get to the E concourse for our Express flight to Birmingham, complete with the walk through the psychedelic underground passage that connects terminals but we had enough time to turn it into a fairly leisurely stroll.

The CRJ 170 flight was quite pleasant as well - it helps to be sitting in the first row of F - with hardly any bumps along the way.

Almost before we knew it we'd landed in Birmingham and picked up our rental car from Hertz. It appears they upgraded us to a Prius. A nice change from the sleazy Alamo operation on the previous trip that we described just a few weeks ago. Very pleasant and interesting on first drive, although the first impression includes the sense that there's very poor visibility in the rear-view mirror, due to the shape of the hatchback. Maybe we'll get used to it.

And here we are, being entertained by Riley as we await the birth of her new baby brother. The countdown continues...