Wayfaring Day 95

October 3, 2025 Friday

Today we go forth into the unknown world of house and dog sitting.

The alarm sounded at 3:00 am and we started getting ready to leave with our sights set on leaving by 3:30 or so. We left the house for the 35 minutes drive to the airport. There was very, very little traffic. We parked in the terminal parking lot and made the short walk to the terminal. Our first lesson was leaned early. We parked at the terminal near our departure gate but this is far away from the Frontier ticket counters and bag check kiosk. Amy stayed near one of the TSA precheck lines while David made the trek to the Frontier area of Terminal E. Frontier requires that you check your bag at least one hour before flight time or guess what: they charge you a fee. We made that deadline by about 30 minutes. David got our one back checked and walked back to Amy. We went through TSA pre check but it wasn’t much quicker than the other line. We walked to our gate and found a place to rest while we waited on our boarding time. Frontier boards early and closes boarding at 20 minutes before flight time. When we boarded we realized David has boarding group 1 while Amy is in boarding group 6. They did let us board together. The seats were of the cheaper variety with the smallest tray table we have ever seen. But all in all everything was comfortable enough.

We landed in Denver on time and had time to grab a bite before boarding our flight to Everett. The flight to Everett was also comfortable and problem free. We were able to see a few of the volcanic peaks as we flew in. We could see Hood, Adams and Ranier. Our plane landed at Paine Field as scheduled and we deplaned. This is a small airport with only one baggage carousel. It has two jetways which is two more than our hometown airport. The airport is also home to the Boeing plant so there are many planes on the ground. The only regular commercial airlines who have planes flying here appear to be Frontier and Alaska.

We called the hotel to ask about a pick up with their shuttle service and they told us they no longer provided the shuttle. The hotel isn’t quite walking distance so we got an Uber for the 2 mile ride to the Hilton Garden Inn at a cost of about $20. The notification that the room was ready had come just after we landed so we were already checked in and could go directly to our room. We did stop briefly at the front desk to get a couple of complimentary waters and snacks. Our room faced the airport which was David’s plan so that we could watch the airplanes land and take off.

Our host for the house/pet sitting were to meet us here at the hotel at around 1:00 in order to drop off the car they are allowing us to use while we are here. At about 1:00 they were there with the car. This was our first meeting in person so we did a little talking before they went on about their business. They explained the car functions and showed us around the car to look at any previous scrapes and marks. We went back up to the room for a bit and then decided to go find a place to eat. We found a good pizza place in Mukilteo, visited a Safeway and headed back to the room. A little later we drove down to the Mukilteo lighthouse and hung out there for an hour or two. We watched the ferries go in and out and the trains pass by along the edge of the water. A sea otter was bobbing up and down looking for food just off the beach. We had a nice relaxing time and then drove around Mukilteo for awhile before ending up back at the hotel. It had been a long day so we turned in at a reasonable time in order to try to catch up on our sleep.