A "Short" Hop to New York

DC to JFK

As I mentioned earlier, our flights to Auckland left from New York.  Our outbound flight left from JFK, which is an airport I have successfully avoided for almost three decades.  This time, however, I was excited to return.  Our flight to Beijing was leaving Thursday night.  Planning so far out and not knowing what the winter weather might hold for us, we had contingency plans to get to New York.  I booked a one-way car rental, for us to just drive up, whereas we also had a plane reservation.  In addition to not wanting to risk missing a same-day connection, we elected to go up to New York a night early.  My ulterior motive was for us to stay in the new TWA Hotel, which opened up in the former TWA flight terminal earlier this year.  In fact, I booked our room several months before the hotel even opened.  I had been reading about the multi-year effort to convert the long-abandoned iconic building designed by Eero Saarinen in the early 1960's.  It was famous for, among other things, having no right angles anywhere in the structure.  When TWA went bankrupt, the terminal was left empty.  Being registered on the list of historic structures saved it from the wrecking ball.  A private company elected to restore the building to it's '60's roots and open up as a hotel.  I couldn't resist the chance to stay here, and it made the idea of a return to JFK almost palatable.

Our flight from Dulles to JFK should have been very short.  Check-in was smooth, but as we waited in the lounge, we got an alert from Delta telling us the flight was delayed due to snow in New York.  The plane was inbound from JFK, and we ended up about an hour late.  Though our phone apps said the weather in New York was clear, we did end up arriving in the midst of extended snow squalls.  The snow was heavy as we landed, and we even skidded a little on the runway.  The snow was causing havoc at the airport though, with dozens of delayed flights, which left us sitting on the tarmac for more than 30 minutes just waiting to even get to a gate.  The airline -- Delta -- was also short staffed, so it took another 45 minutes for our bags to come out, by which time it was already after 11:00pm.  None of this was giving us good omens for the coming trip.

It was a relatively short and easy ride on the shuttle train between terminals for us to reach the TWA hotel.   We did have to walk outside in the snow for a ways, but we had luckily brought along winter coats, even though we were destined for a New Zealand summer.

The hotel was beyond beautiful, and felt more like a museum than anything else.  We reached the room close to midnight, and were all ready to go to sleep.

I should mention, too, that we left DC on Anna's 20th birthday.  We had formally celebrated the night before, a day early.  It was also the day that President Trump was impeached.  Anna now says she'll forever remember her 20th as the day we left for New Zealand and the day of Trump's impeachment.