This is a second entry for Tuesday, August 15th. As I indicated in the previous blog entry, done very early this morning, I was to fly to San Francisco today.

The limo dropped me off at the United Terminal at O'Hare this morning about 7:45 AM. My flight did not leave until 9:55 AM, but with all the security issues since the terror plot discovered in Great Britain, I decided to allow plenty of time for the security procedure. There was hardly a soul in line!! I breezed through Security, then walked down to the Red Carpet Club, where we usually go when we have extra time before boarding.

Once there, I made myself a "mocha," which didn't taste as good as the one Phil fixes for us when I'm traveling with him. :-) (Seated just two seats away from me was Bill Rancic --- is that the correct pronunciation and/or spelling? -- the first winner of "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump. Bill is in charge of the construction of the new Trump Hotel being built downtown Chicago on the site of the Chicago Sun-Times building, right on the Chicago River.)

After a sufficient amount of time in the Red Carpet Club, I left and walked almost the entire length of the B Concourse to my gate, B17. The beautiful 747 was sitting there, waiting to receive all of us flying to SFO at 9:55 AM. It looked exactly like the one in the picture above, which was actually taken when we flew to Hong Kong in September of 2004.

I was already "upgraded" from coach to business class (we receive complimentary upgrades due to the number of miles we fly), and I had seat 15B, which is upstairs on 747's. However, after I had stood in the gate area (and fairly near the counter) for about ten minutes, one of the agents asked "If passenger Myrna White is in the gate area, please come to the counter." I had to take a mere five or six steps, and I was there. She said something to the effect, "I have a new plan for you, Mrs. White....I'm putting you in first class." WOW! (That's first class with the special seats that turn basically into beds! Comfort plus!!)

What a fabulous gift! When I asked her how this happened, she just said, "It's a long story." I said, "That's fine.......I don't need to know. Thank you, thank you!"

So, I ended up in the second row on the right side of the plane. By the way, first class is right up in the nose of the plane. (I had windows 4, 5, and 6 for my viewing pleasure.) What a lovely, unexpected experience! It was wonderful.



This is a picture of San Francisco which I took several years ago when Phil and I went downtown SF to have dinner in a restaurant that sits atop a huge and very high office building. We were celebrating an anniversary.....don't remember which # it was.



Since Phil began this engagement at Genentech, we have also stayed downtown San Francisco at the Hilton (as well as where we are now, the Marriott San Francisco Airport). I took the above picture one morning as the sun was just peeking over the mountains east of SF.



And this was our view in the daytime from the San Francisco Hilton. :-)