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Mon Oct 11 09:43:47 EDT 2021
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"Can you pick us up at the airport on Sunday? Our flight
lands around eight."

"Probably. AM or PM?" "PM." Pause for a second... "Which
airport?" "Dulles." "Sure."

Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) is around 15 miles
away. I'm familiar with it -- easy in & out. Dulles? Not so
much. It's about an hour drive: Down to the top of the DC
Beltway, counter-clockwise to the West, then out along the
Dulles Toll Road -- toll free -- to the airport.

It's dark and I'm unfamiliar with the layout. I get sucked
into the terminal loop -- an oval road that will let you go
around and around for repeated passes in front of the
terminals for arrivals or departures. The second time
around. The exits for the paid parking lots were well
marked; the directions to the "cell phone lot" were not as
easy to spot. Still, I found my way out, maybe a mile away
to the open lot.

It was a beautiful, cool, autumn night. The occassional
drizzle cleared to allow me out of the car to stretch and
walk about. It'd be around another 30-minutes before their
plane landed and at least another hour before they cleared
customs. That gave me some time with a podcast, watching the
people come and go, a visit to some nasty port-a-potties,
and a hello with the Uber & Lyft drivers hanging out nearby.

It was around another hour east driving the kids back to
their apartment, then another half-hour heading back north
to finish the circuit. And it was totally worth it, hearing
the stories from their adventure :-)