Ranch Flavor

It was not without trepidation that I checked into the Los Angeles Red Carpet club for my 7 p.m. flight to Seattle. I had stopped flying United for a reason and National Airlines, with their nuts and hot towels on 38-minute flights and always-available upgrades, had spoiled me. Still, I got a nice smile and thoroughly professional checkin although she seemed to have difficulty understanding me when I asked if I had the farthest forward aisle seat available on each segment. She printed my gold boarding pass, I grabbed a couple plastic-wrapped packs of Gouda, and I used a free local call to surf with Monkeyboy while I waited. I forget what I used to do to pass time before the Internet. United had replaced most of the disgusting stained yellow upholstery in the Red Carpet Club and in made a huge difference. Hunnybear says if I notice dirt, something must be really dirty.

Around 6:30 the flight showed as on time so I walked over to Terminal 6 and navigated the maze to gate 66. Passengers were still exiting the previous flight but they hadn�t updated the obviously erroneous departure time of my flight so I sighed and waited as I watched the agents yell the names of their best customers to get their butts up to the �podium� for a grudging upgrade. Of course a podium is something you stand on. What those agents had was a counter. Yet I didn�t wish to be bitter so I bit my tongue and refrained from correcting the diction of these unpleasant, overworked LAX airline employees. But couldn�t they say �please�?

We finally did board about 20 minutes late. The Jetway was hooked up to door 1 so I predicted correctly that there would be no preflight drinks because the difficulty. Other than that the service was nice. I eschewed the commercials on video in favor of playing games on Monkeyboy and listening to Soft Sounds on channel four. The two-hour flight went quickly once I had my Bloody Mary. We got a packet of �ranch-flavored snack with almonds� with the drinks. Rather than make up a possibly disgusting story about what �ranch� tasted like I burrowed through the bag and found the two almonds. Yes! Nuts had returned to United.

I got to order first because I was 1K but I couldn�t decide. I told her to just bring me whatever was left over because I was sure some folks in row six wouldn�t get their choice. She thanked me but didn�t bring me a bottle of wine. Dinner was excellent: steak and seafood brochettes with the dessert pre-removed from they tray as I requested accompanied by a glass of Bouchard white wine. This was my first experience with the new no-tablecloth policy. It didn�t really seem to make a hell of a lot of difference and I realized Alaska Airlines had been doing it for years. My seat opponent had the fajitas, which also looked yummy. He pointed out some impressive forest fires below and then whipped out his GPS to identify the location as near Susanville, CA.

We landed on time despite the delay in Los Angeles and my Hunnybear was waiting for me at the gate, arms outstretched, having survived her flight from Lansing on Northwest (a four-hour flight with no video or even audio entertainment). The trams were all being torn up but we found our way to the parking garage and Hertz. My name was on the board for Gold service but in our space we inexplicably found a Ford Escort. I went to the booth and asked if an upgrade was possible and the agent said I already had a nice upgrade to an Escort. �What�s below an Escort?� asked Hunnybear. I asked if Neverlost was possible but he was all sold out, it being a summer weekend in Seattle, so we settled for a nice Ford Focus and headed down the secret freeway to the W.

Valet service was a bit less lethargic than I remembered it and they managed to open my door for me but Hunnybear was too quick for them. We waited a couple minutes in line at the registration desk and got checked in by a very nice man. �Do we have a supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious suite?� I asked. �Oh yes,� he nodded assuringly, writing our room number on a black envelope in silver ink. �You�re on the 22nd floor.� I thanked him and we proceeded to our room, the same type we had last time, a smallish corner room. Two Hershey�s Kisses lay on a silver tray by bedside and there was a nice Platinum amenity of a chocolate-peppermint cookie, a tin of Moravian spice wafers, and a small bottle of San Pellegrino in a black bag. The room was nice but one day I would like to try one of these cool suites with the cool names.

We thought about going down for an Emerald drop but we instead we just melted into the W Signature Bed.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

QL,

Welcome back. I've always enjoyed your posts.

PerrySSoCal

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joyfully subversive

as a rule I love ( I am really addicted) to QL's trip reports ...

OK QuietLion & Hunnybear, which is better the Westin Heavenly Bed or the W Signature Bed?

[This message has been edited by newself (edited 08-11-2001).]

Thanks for all the encouragement!

newself, I believe Hunnybear has already weighed in on that topic in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

I had the pleasure (?) of listening to Julie Andrews and the ensemble singing songs from Mary Poppins at breakfast at the Mumbai Taj Mahal hotel earlier this week.

Your check-in man was probably a pedant:

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" properly descibes a suite at the W.

Good luck next time!

Blazing Inferno

We awoke at the W Seattle to find we had one of the rare rooms with a view of the Space Needle. Well, we had a view of the base of the Space Needle anyway�the flying saucer was obscured by fog. We were fearful it would be another cold cloudy day in Seattle but the morning mist quickly burned off to reveal the best day here in 20 years. While Hunnybear went for a morning run to keep herself beautiful for me I fired up Monkeyboy and enjoyed the high-speed Internet access, now one of my primary considerations in choosing hotels, to keep myself well-informed for her. She returned with a Tully�s Coffee, the world�s best, now with two locations in Santa Monica but not yet in Marina del Rey.

Roni drove up from Olympia to meet us for lunch and we walked down the hill to Elliott�s past the Lusty Lady, a strip club run by women that was the last vestige of First Avenue�s seedy past. They always had a witticism on their marquee that changed daily. Today�s was �Naked or Nude? You decide.� The outdoor animal-art mania that had started in Santa Fe with coyotes and gained worldwide attention in Chicago with cows had turned into pigs in Seattle. Porcine productions populated every street corner and a deconstructed model pig sat attached to its frame atop Pike Place market, home of the original pig Rachel.

At Elliott�s we asked the hostess for an outdoor table and she was happy to oblige, first warning us though that it was pretty sunny out there. We said we could handle it. Meanwhile I felt like putting on a sweater in the below-80 Seattle morning. Another hostess took us to a table in the sun and said she was happy we were taking it because three parties had already eschewed it in favor of a shady parasol. Seattle had weather like this once every two years and they were under an umbrella.

We started with iced tea and a dozen of my favorite oysters, Westcott Flats, which went quickly. We ordered refills on the iced tea and told the waiter to make sure to bring more ice because it melts fast in this blazing inferno. We all had different forms of yummy salmon and basked in the rare sun for an hour and a half before paying the bill and leaving that living hell.

We walked along the waterfront to see John Sisko ( www.siskoworks.com ) in his studio. Construction in Belltown continued apace. The sneaky *******s had built the uphill units first and sold them before blocking their views with the next project just downhill. Sisko showed us his cool works-in-progress and plied us with wine for a couple hours before we had to leave to walk back through Pike Place Market, where we exchanged brief greetings with Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks and former Microsoft hallmate, driving a silver Porsche Boxster. I got my first glimpse of the new football stadium, built with ugly arches to match the ugly roof of the new baseball park named after an insurance company that paid millions of dollars to name it after them but they didn�t pay me anything so I just call it the new ballpark. The a capella gospel singers were right where I left them in front of Starbucks #1, still graced with the original mermaid logo before the breasts were removed.

We cleaned up and changed to Pluto and Martha�s anniversary party. I looked on the invitation for suggested dress and didn�t find anything so Hunnybear went smart-casual while I went fat-casual. There was no traffic on I-90 but we used the express lanes to get across Lake Washington to Issaquah anyway just so we could exercise our special privileges.

No one was better at throwing parties than Pluto and Martha. They outdid themselves again with a newly planted lawn and a festive tent in their backyard. McCormack and Schmick�s, a Northwest-based seafood restaurateur, catered the affair. The only gin served was the best, Tanqueray Ten, so I had a couple martinis and munched on the wandering appetizers. Pluto and Martha had a tradition I thought everyone should adopt: they gave gifts to their guests. He gave us a rare bottle of 1996 Domaine Drouhin �Laurene� Oregon Pinot Noir. Actually Hunnybear got a gift too so we got double gifts.

Hunnybear drove us back to the W, where the motion-detector kicked in and started bringing the room temperature down from the 150� it had risen to while we were away. When the heat subsided we snoozed.


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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

QL,

Why is there a problem when the jetbridge is at door 1? Do you mean it is a 757 and the crew won't serve drinks while coach boards?

[This message has been edited by FoothillFlyer (edited 08-12-2001).]

Always a pleasure to see a new QL report.

Didn't this start with cows in Zurich?

BTW, my wife would argue for the superiority of Plymouth Gin. I'm not a gin drinker, myself.

It did, they did the same in Chicago after the huge success in Zurich. Our local tourism office here estimates some 100'000+ extra visitors because of the cows.

FoothillFlyer: exactly right.

opus17: The pastel coyotes were in Santa Fe since at least the early '80s. The Zurich cows are only a few years old.

Geek sex symbol

We packed up and went down to the front desk to check out of the W Seattle. It was nickel-and-dime hell. Our free night and second night at $179 ended up costing $302. I left it on my Starwood American Express card and we got the green Ford Focus out of valet parking and headed east where we had a yummy brunch with Tony and Judy and Tim and Christine. I called the dedicated United 1K reservations number, worked through the automated menu, got put on hold for a minute which should never ever happen, and found my exact flight time. It took exactly a half-hour to get from Redmond to Sea-Tac airport. We cruised right up to the Hertz car return and for the first time in a while I used the express return because the roving cashiers were backed up.

Hunnybear accompanied me to the United 1K counter, which in Seattle says �100K.� I waited a few minutes for the lone agent there to take care of his customer while the four agents working the Premier/Premier Executive/Star Alliance Gold and Silver/Upgrades line waited on three parties. I told the agent I was only 1K but I�d promise to get the other 99 if he�d check me in. He did and Hunnybear complimented him and United in general on their new diligence in collecting upgrade certificates. She mentioned she was flying Northwest today because she was out of United upgrades. The agent was pretty laconic but nice and just handed me the boarding passes. Quite a line had formed behind me in the 1K/Full Fare First Class/Pass Plus queue.

Hunnybear and I said tender farewells and she trekked southward while I went through the new security and war zone to the torn-up tram. I got to gate N2 moments before the 757 boarded, this time from door two so we got preflight drinks. I settled into seat 2C had sparkling water with lime. My seat opponent was a beefy sailor reading a book on the aviation industry and drinking gin and tonics. I had one of the same stewardesses as on my trip up on Friday. She kept calling me �doctor.�

This was a snack flight so instead of the yummy brochettes or yummy fajitas we had a choice of chicken or chicken. I took the chicken salad instead of the chicken with creamy cheese sauce. I forgot to request removal of the dessert, which as a rule I don�t eat, so I was forced to try the chocolate-chip cookie. Geek sex-symbol Soledad O�Brien was on the video system between commercials so I watched her talk while listening to Soft Sounds through my Sony NC-10 noise-canceling earplugs. There were three screaming children in the row behind and the Sonys performed admirably.

We landed a few minutes early in Los Angeles.

Lion thoughts:
� If United hired Tom Peters to design a plan to alienate their best customers he couldn�t do a better job than they�re doing right now.
� Sometimes it�s better to get the best room in the worst hotel than pay twice as much for a mediocre room in the best hotel.
� Wherever you go, you can have a great time if you�ve got friends.

The end.



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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

Again, a QL LionTale has made me spit coffee on my computer screen.

Thanks.

Last week, during SeaFair, the marquee read, "Seamen, Welcome Here!"

QL - Been listening to Leykis?

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joyfully subversive

[This message has been edited by PerrySSoCal (edited 08-13-2001).]