EP16: A Day Late & Full of Airport Thoughts | Travel Day Experience

Travel days are a mix of chaos patience and the weirdest thoughts needed to be shared!

In todays episode I am a day late but it was a travel day lol. I am sharing my airport thoughts from TSA lines and flying nerves to seat situations turbulence and all the little observations that come with travel days.

 Basically everything my brain decides to overthink while trying to get from point A to point B without losing my carry on or my patience. 

It is a mix of brain dump and silly inner workings that show up when I am just trying to get somewhere. It is funny and still somehow always worth it in the end.

Thanks for hanging out with me on Mostly Aligned.

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If you ever want to say hi, share what you’re moving through, or tell me what landed, you can email me at mostlyalignedpodcast@gmail.com.

Until next time! Make yourself a cup of tea, don’t overthink everything, and stay mostly aligned.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to Most Day Online, where we're figuring it out mostly. Desai, your girl, Lola, your host, Resident Story Weaver, Intuition Apprentice, Herbal Girly, and Proud Card Carry member of the I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trusting the universe anyway, club. If you're new here, welcome to my Cosy Chaos. I'm really glad you found your way. And to my returners. What's up, friends? Thanks for walking this path with me, for letting me grow out loud and for sticking around through all the reflecting, spiraling, healing, and okay, but now what moments? Mostly aligned is my audio journal about healing, intuition, starting over, protecting your peace, and noticing those tiny magic moments that quietly remind you who you are becoming. All right, y'all. Coming to you live from Bozeman. Honestly, though, it feels like part of my brain is still at the airport. Maybe Denver, maybe here, maybe Fort Lauderdale. I don't know. It's hard to keep track on travel days. However, I'm in my final destination, and I'm so excited to spend the week here, hang out with my bestie, connect with my friends, bond with the mountains again, and just fully lean into Montana spring vibes. It actually feels really great out here. Also, a very quick apology for being a day late on this episode. It was travel day and it just took took a bit out of me, gonna be honest. Um but I think that's a fair reason. So if you're ready, grab your favorite bevy, settle in, and let's begin. I feel like I feel like I should have a mic on me during travel days because some of my airport thoughts sometimes they're pretty solid and it must be shared. So instead I did write some of them down. So enjoy my brain dump. Okay, let's start with TSA. I'm sure you're caught up on what's been going on on social media for the last few weeks and how nutty the lines at TSA have been. And you see people showing up hours early, still missing flights, longest lines ever. The whole thing, it's kind of crazy. And I'm not gonna lie, leading up to my trip, I was kind of worried about it. Um, you know, it's a valid thing, and I had an early flight, but I also kept checking Fort Lauderdale Airport, and honestly, it was fine. If anything, it felt like people showing up too early was causing more of the congestion than TSA itself. Cause I got through it in like 20 minutes at best, which that's pretty standard. However, there were a few things I did notice, like fewer TSA agents than usual. Um, I mean, there was less people at the ID check desk. There were maybe only two scanners open at first. And honestly, I I'm used to there being a lot of like people there like reviewing the bag scans, but no, it was kind of I don't know, weird, but also like I'm glad we're still moving. You know, if it was like 3 or 4 a.m. sure, this makes sense, but it was 6 a.m. which that's usually like a busy time for the airport. And I don't know, to have a light c oh, a light crew for Fort Lauderdale, weird. However, I still made it through. It was quick, and I still felt like they were being pretty thorough, just less people, I guess. I don't know. So yeah, got through it, probably waited maybe another 30 to 40 minutes before my flight boarded, and I was flying southwest, which apparently switching things up recently, like they're assigning seats now, which thank god it was like such a pleasant surprise because now I don't have to fight for my life for overhead bin space and pray that I don't get the middle seat. They also, you know, were a little more strict over the size of your carry-on, which for Southwest, like if you've used them before this change, and then now you'd be like, whoa, but yeah, I was kind of worried, and I also had to like figure out okay, if they do make me check this in, what do I pull out? Because I do have a layover, and so thankfully it made it through. But you know what? This airport shuffle, it feels kind of like a gamble. You don't know what kind of hands you're gonna get dealt, but the final destination is worth the risk. I'm not gonna lie. I also feel like travel day just helped me catch up on my people watching, which is kind of interesting, like watching different people travel, whether it's a solo person or a couple or a family. I don't know. I like to guess who's running the show because there are the unsung heroes of Travel Day. I'm not gonna lie. And I'm sure you remember a few episodes back a few episodes back. Wow, I can't talk right now. I just woke up, but yeah, a few episodes back when I went to Peru with my siblings, my older sister was the leader, and as a person who flies solo pretty frequently, it just felt so nice having someone that's just taking care of everything. Like what? So to me, the best seat on a plane is the window, duh. But I always close second, I'm not gonna lie. Well, I enjoy watching liftoff, especially when it's raining, which I know kind of weird, but whatever. And I know there's like all this scientific explanation to how it happens, but it's pretty freaking magical still that this metal tube with metal wings gets up in the air and takes you practically anywhere. Like, come on. Something that does make me feel mildly guilty is that I have pay attention to the safety instructions. I know it's important, I know it's part of their job, they have to do it every time. It's a liability thing, I get it. But man, I miss the days where flight attendants would try to keep you engaged through the whole thing with some personality, some light humor, wittiness. I don't know. I miss it. So my first flight, I'm not gonna lie, I successfully manifested the middle seat who doesn't love a little extra leg space. And the person that was sitting in the aisle seat in my same row had the best idea. We ended up moving our bags to the middle seat, and we were chilling. I also had ever intentioned to manifest the same for me in my second flight. The best case scenario, someone fun, entertaining maybe. But yeah. Mind you, during my layovers, I wrote down well, my one layover. I wrote down a lot of these thoughts. So it sounds kind of scattered, I know. I was also waiting at the gate while I was, you know, kind of writing all of this down. And the flight came in at my gate, and people were getting off the plane, and like this one person literally just got off and sat at this like little booth I was at. Like they sat right across from me and they're like, Can I charge here? And I'm like, sure. It was still a bit awkward at first, but it turned into actually a pretty nice conversation. He was a very kind gentleman, he was just dealt some pretty rough travel day cards, but he was very interesting and very kind, and it was like a nice little 20-minute distraction before they let us on the plane, and that's only because they were a little backed up. They had to change a seatbelt, and that took like them some time. It was crazy. Also, and I don't know if I'm alone on this, but I know my first flight they announced ahead of time when we would encounter turbulence, and so cool, but we didn't really go through much, if any, and I was waiting, like, for it to I don't know, start shaking a little. And it yeah, it was just that, and I was just sitting there and I'm like, I don't know if I need to know before it happens, like I don't think it's necessary to know. I'd rather just like wait for the first big rocking, and then they'll be like, We're going through some turbulence now, no worry, we got this, just strap in. But yeah, don't tell me ahead of time because then I'm just like waiting for it, bracing myself. Yeah, like he also made it sound like it was gonna be a lot, so I don't know, just a thought, I guess. My second flight, it was pretty chill. I mean, I didn't have to check in my carry-on, even though they were making like a great deal of announcements, but a lot of people volunteered before I even boarded the plane, so that was amazing. And I did have someone in the middle seat, however, he was a cool dude, just excited to visit friends like myself. So conversation actually made the flight go pretty fast. Now, the only downside to this flight was my 10A window seat had no window, like it was just a wall, no outside view of this plane, and honestly, I was kind of stunned because even on the seating map, when you pick your seat ahead of time, it shows a window, and on my boarding pass, it clearly says window seat. It was my shock of lack of window that led to the conversation with the middle seat guy. Like my raw reaction to it was very humorous to him, and he also made a good point. He's like, if I would have paid $15 for a window seat and didn't get a window, I'd be pretty upset. I'm like, yeah, but I can't complain because I didn't have to pay to sit here, so yeah, it was crazy. And if you're on a southwest flight, I don't know the plane number, but just remember 10A may come with no window. And honestly, by the time I actually sit down and properly record this, I might already be at Embers and past all this airport chaos. But I think that's kind of the point. Slip right back into our silly humor that has us laughing until we're tearing up and just hard chilling. We got some sideways pizza, took a nice walk down to the river, we had face masks, and just watched some secret life of Mormon Wives. I missed her so much, and yeah, it was very much needed Amber time. So that's all I got for you. Short, sweet, to the point. I'm really looking forward to sharing some friend time on the pod with Amber. So yeah, I'm thinking maybe an episode or two, maybe another friend or two. And if you got any questions for us, send them my way. I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at mostinlinepodcast at gmail.com. Feel free to share your story or maybe something you've been reflecting, or any moment that made you smile. I would love to hear it all. If you're enjoying the show, leave a comment, follow, subscribe, or a five-star rating. It really helps others find this space. So whether you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, wherever you're podcasting. All right, y'all. Thank you for being here. And yeah, sending you so much love and uh a whisper of magic. Till next time.