Bill and I successfully traveled from Phoenix to Denver yesterday via Southwest Airlines. Travel is never easy, but our day went as well as we could have hoped. Our wonderful Canadian neighbors were nice enough to take us to the airport so that we didn’t have to pay for Lyft or Uber. People say all Canadians are nice, but even if that is true, those two sit right on top of the Nice People Mountain.

We got in and out of baggage check quickly. I will tell you that checking in outdoors whenever possible is the way to go. It is worth the crumpled dollar bills that Bill and I managed to scrape up to give the Southwest agent so that he isn’t annoyed with us enough that he sends our bags to Fargo, North Dakota.

We ran into a tiny glitch when the TSA pre-approved agent told us we had to turn around because our tickets didn’t say that we were TSA pre-approved. I started to push back, but then realized that I really didn’t want my TSA agent making exceptions, even for little ol’ innocent me. Plus, the regular security line actually had fewer people than the line from which we were being kicked out. Sure, I had to remove my shoes, and sure, given that my left foot is still swollen, there was a serious chance I wouldn’t get the shoe back on. But, as it turned out, no harm, no foul. My shoe slipped on with just a bit of coaxing and we were at the restaurant eating breakfast and drinking a spicy Bloody Mary before you could say no-liquids-larger-than-4-ounces. It was the best $17 Bloody Mary I’ve ever tasted. Yikes. And it didn’t even have bacon. Or a celery stick.

The flight took one hour and 17 minutes. I kept track. The man next to me slept the whole way. Actually the men on either side of me slept the whole way. I read my book that is due today and with which I’m not yet finished.

Very little turbulence, and clear skies on both ends of the trip made for a decent experience. We made our way to baggage claim, where the bags didn’t come. And didn’t’ come. And didn’t come. Finally, an overhead announcement told us that we may have noticed that the bags didn’t come. Never fear, she said. The bad news is the bags are not going to come for quite a while for reasons I’m not going to explain. The good news is that they are — most assuredly — going to come at some point.

And they did, in fact, eventually come. Our Canadian friends were not there to take us from the airport to our Denver home, so we took Lyft. The man didn’t say one word to us the entire trip, largely because he spent the entire trip on the phone talking to someone in Spanish. No problem, Juan (his name was Juan). I tipped you anyway. I didn’t feel like talking.

Our house was fine, though of course there is not even a crumb of food in the pantry or refrigerator. So we ate dinner out, and ate our leftovers for breakfast. Nothing says good morning like sausage and peppers over spaghetti.

But I slept like a baby on the most comfortable mattress since people stopped sleeping on straw. Tonight I think I will go to the first showing of our granddaughters’ middle school play.