October 12, 2023, San Diego- Columbus may have ended his first voyage across an ocean, on this day. I begin my twelfth such journey in less than an hour. Transitions have invariably included at least one headache. Today’s involved finding the auto park where Sportage will spend its time, while I am on the other side of the Pacific. You have to love Google Maps-three times directing me to a man’s welding shop, and all because CalDOT re-named a road and Google didn’t pick up on it. After the third time, I found the shop owner and learned that he gets five or six people a month stopping at his place and inquiring as to the Auto Park’s location. It was then that I called the Auto Park’s parent company, got the Auto Park’s local number and within minutes was securing my vehicle’s safety for the duration of my time away. Cell phones can be homeopathic.

The other thing I realized was that I did not want to leave Samesun Hostel. It was time, though, and the Sowellian trade-off is that I will make several new friends along the way. The desk clerk at the hostel, as I checked out, was officious,but courteous. Her slightly standoffish nature is perhaps the result of dealing with hundreds of relative strangers who come and go each day. It just was a tad different from the other desk clerks I have encountered at Samesun.

I stopped briefly at San Diego Baha’i Center, to pick up a newly-printed study guide. Then it was lunchtime. In the interests of not running out my time on the crotchety parking meter, I stopped in at Carnivore Sandwich, a spot on the edge of Little Italy that is popular with sailors from the not-too-distant 32nd Street Base. Taking the Philly cheese steak to the waterfront was a refreshing idea, sitting on a park bench, greeted by a cyclist who wished me a nice lunch and by a pair of dogs, who were eager to sniff the remnants of my meal. After their owner gave a stern “No” to that idea, the trio went off to their motorized raft and on to her sailboat.

A short time later, after walking along the harbourside, near the Coast Guard complex, I headed towards the Auto Park, and worked through the above-mentioned challenge. A short shuttle ride later, it was time to visit Alaska Airlines. The check-in process was not complicated, with the comical incident of my camera falling out of the TSA bin, while it was going through the screening. When I asked an agent for help in finding it, she wondered whether it needed to be screened further. Nope-it was found, sitting by its lonesome, in a slight dip along the belt.

San Francisco- The flight from San Diego was smooth, but for mild turbulence over Big Sur. I found that the folder containing secondary copies of my flight arrangements and letters of introduction had remained behind, at the gate in San Diego. I have all I need on phone and laptop, so it is just a zing to my pride and a small life lesson.

An occasionally squawking toddler, and a trio of small dogs, yipping one in a while, from their mesh kennel, were the only interruptions to in-flight silence, as my seatmate and I read our books and admired the slender line of sunset, about forty minutes into the flight. I last saw her, intense in thought and trying to figure out the map to the International Terminal. Feeling it prudent to leave her to her own resourceful mind, I made the walk to this terminal, in ten minutes.

When I got to China Air’s ticket counter, a small group of Taiwanese elders pointed to the empty counters, then to their mouths- as in ” Go eat, then come back”. It was a good idea, as once I had supped on chicken salad and a cup of coffee, the ticket counters were fully in business. It did not take long, though, to get my boarding passes for T’aipei and Manila, then to undergo a second security check. Now, a small group of us are at comfortable Gate 11. It’s close to my customary bedtime, but sleep will come on the plane.

My account of this Friday the 13th will be brief. When we leave San Francisco, it’ll be 1:05 a.m., the International Date Line will be crossed, and it’ll be slightly after 5 a.m., Saturday the 14th, when we land in T’aipei. It will be quite a life, these next two days.