California at last

We haven’t had lunch, and it’s almost 3:00 Central time, so food takes a priority over luggage!

We head through the Orange County airport to the food court and get some pizzas and salad. There aren’t a lot of seating options, but we find a couch-like place facing some big windows looking out onto the runway. My kind of place – I used to visit airports all the time just to watch the planes take off and land until 9/11 changed it to require you to have a ticket.

With lunch over, we walk back through the terminal and out to the luggage claim area. Hey, this taking a break for a meal has its advantages – our bags are almost the only ones left on the carousel. No stressful crowd-fighting and suitcase-grabbing for us!

We’ve got another Super Shuttle reserved to take us to the hotel where we are staying, so we head out to the “shared ride” island and check in with the attendant.

As we wait for our van, Brandon points me to see Tom Jackson, fellow VM member, approaching. Indeed, he’s with his whole quartet, the William Kratt Chord Company, who besides singing in the Vocal Majority with me are also in this week’s quartet competition. And hey, now here comes Greg Clancy, son of our director Jim, longtime Associate Director of the VM before stepping down earlier this year, and quartet champion himself.

It’s an odd feeling as I wave to each of them – it’s great seeing familiar faces, but it’s really, really weird to see them in a different state! We’re not used to arriving at our vacation destination only to be surrounded by faces from home!