Good Morning, Newark

The Hampton Inn we stayed in last night was fine. We walked through a parking lot to the Renaissance next door and enjoyed a light dinner of shared appetizers in their highly rated restaurant before going to bed at 8:00 p.m. One crab cake each was plenty - tasty!

We slept well until we woke up - in Brian's case about 1:30 a.m.

We caught the 4:30 a.m. shuttle.

There was no TSA Pre-Check line but we were graciously issued a piece of paper that gave us "expedited" screening, meaning we got to stand in line for five minutes watching an employee put multiple boxes of donuts and a birthday cake through the X-Ray belt. 

Kathy then got a "random" alert as she walked through the metal detector, and consequently received a light morning massage. Then they had to check our Italian cheeses, but there was no hassle. 

Even with all this, we've been sitting at the gate since 5:10 a.m., enjoying the relative peace and quiet.

We're scheduled to fly at 7:00 a.m. and land in Seattle about 10:00 a.m. We've been upgraded to First so it should be a fairly pleasant five hours.