Flew to St. Louis this morning, and later on to Pittsburgh for the great Oakmont boondoggle. I enjoyed the flight, the first of six (!) I’ll do on this journey. On time, not terribly crowded, and peaceful up in the air with my iPad and trusty Bose 700 noise cancellers. When travel goes well, it’s great. An interlude at Vino Volo with a decent Negroamaro in the STL airport is my little treat at the layover.

A few things were different today. First, the TSA seemed to have regressed at the security checkpoint. In the TSApre line, you had to take laptops out, and as I learned too late, iPads also. Perhaps there was a security alert that caused this old rule to be re-invoked.

Next, I planned on getting some cash for the trip at an ATM in either SAN or STL, but…there are no ATMs to be seen anywhere. I wonder if that’s just where I am or if it’s an industry-wide thing. Weird.

The third difference was that I checked my bags, due to one of them being the golf bag. Getting on with just a backpack full of electronics was luxurious. I may check my bags a little more often, though one lost-bag incident and I’m sure I’ll reconsider.

All in, I continue to be very happy about recovering the privilege of air travel. I said it before, I won’t take that for granted again. Pandemic lesson 101. The bad old days were pretty good.