Weary Traveler

Editor's Note: This blog was written on Thursday, May 12th 2011...

I am writing this blog post from somewhere over Texas…or New Mexico, or God only knows. It’s 10pm Pacific Time, which means that my body feels like it’s 1am since I’ve been on the East Coast the last few days. Before I can get to all the fun I had on this trip I have to cover my travel for today.

I arrived at Newark Airport at 1pm, knowing I had a 3pm flight and figuring I’d allow for time to get through security, get some food etc. The security line was ridiculously long, and ended up taking about an hour to get through…but since I was early, I figured “no big deal”…oh how right I was…no sooner had I passed through security and collected my things, when I checked my flight status only to see that my flight to San Francisco had been delayed by 3 and a half hours! Since my original flight plan had me catching the last available flight from San Francisco to Sacramento, I knew that I was in trouble and there was no way I was going to be making my connection flight to get home. So I high-tailed it to the Customer Service desk to see what they could do.

Turns out they got me on a flight through Houston, which would end up putting me in Sacramento 3 hours later than planned, but at least I’d get home. So I took the ticket and got on the plane. While sitting on the plane I wound up talking to my neighbor, who it turns out was heading to Tucson to watch his son graduate from the Eller College of Business at UofA…so that was really cool, as we ended up having much more time to talk than we bargained for, but really got on well…

As for the flight, it turns out the weather was really bad in Houston….like really REALLY BAD. They ended up having to re-route our plane 4 different times to avoid the weather, and we ended up running out of gas before we could make Houston, so we had to land in San Antonio an hour and a half later than our flight was supposed to land in Houston…for those of you that have a map or are just good at Texas geography, San Antonio is about an hour’s flight WEST of Houston…so yeah, we were an hour closer to home, an hour and a half late, and yet they wouldn’t let us get off the plane and we had to sit there knowing we were going the wrong way.

At this point I was resigning myself to the fact that I would either be sleeping in a hotel in Houston or in the airport if I could get an early enough flight out. But we figured that since our plane was so delayed by the weather, MAYBE there was a chance that our connecting planes would also be delayed…so we waited in San Antonio while the plane filled up with gas and we hoped for more delays.

The flight into Houston was pretty uneventful except for the fact that we were all checking our watches every 5 minutes, but we landed and I called my Mom to have her check my connecting flight status…SUCCESS! My flight was delayed by an hour and a half, so from the time we landed I had about 30 minutes to board…I was going to make it.

But wait a minute…why the hell is the plane parked on the tarmac? Why aren’t we taxiing to the terminal? What is going on? Then we hear the pilot over the loudspeaker…”Apparently the weather has really screwed stuff up in Houston and all these delayed flights are arriving at the same time, so there are no open terminals for us to park so we’re going to sit tight for 10-15 minutes and then we'll check back in with the tower”….OH SHIT!

As we are waiting, I start doing the math on how far back I am in the airplane…keep in mind this was one of those huge planes with 2x3x2 seating, and I was in like row 400, so I figured my de-boarding would take me another 30 minutes…I even used the call button to try and get the flight attendant (cough cough…stewardist!) to help me get out early by asking all the idiots that were staying in Houston to stay seated…but that didn’t work, so as soon as we did end up parked I grabbed my bags and started bowling people over while yelling “Sorry! Excuse Me! Sorry! Flight in 10 minutes! Sorry!”….I know I was the big jerk, but whatever…I really didn’t want to sleep in the airport.

I officially got off the plane at 5 after 10pm…the delayed flight was scheduled to leave at 10:10pm…I figured I still had 5 minutes to get there…but wait…since all the terminals were booked, they parked us out in BFE….(as in terminal E), but my next plane was parked in terminal C…and the clock was ticking….so off I ran, carrying my computer bag and my carry-on. I probably looked like a haggard bum (the whole lack of sleep was really hitting me by then) but all my long-distance running had mentally prepared me for this race. I darted in and out of people, nearly got jack-knifed by two of those little shuttle vans that drive the old people from one gate to the next (I swear to God the drivers were intentionally trying to kill me but I got the last laugh as I jumped at the last second and they plowed head first into each other with a fiery explosion…ok, I made that last part up, but they really did almost hit me), and passed my buddy Charlie who was sprinting with his family to catch the Tucson flight. We both yelled “good luck!” to each other, but I could tell that he was no long distance runner like I was, so he was totally missing his flight! And this may sound strange, but the whole time I was running through the airport I was thinking about that scene in Home Alone where the whole family is running to catch the flight and they have that music playing…I’m sure you know the song…but yeah, that’s totally what happened to me EXCEPT I didn’t sleep in, nor did I leave my son in the wrong city to face off with idiotic burglars.

Long story short (ok, VERY long story)…I got to the terminal at 10:15pm...5 minutes late…but you know what, they were just closing the doors and the kind lady took pity on me…probably because it looked like I was going to cry…from exhaustion, the pain of my bags bouncing off my body as I ran, or the thought that I made it so close only to have to sleep in the damn airport. Anyhow…she smiled, grabbed my boarding pass, realized that I was on a different flight to Sacramento, but said “screw it” and got me on this one.

I hadn’t planned on writing this post while flying…to be honest with you, I really thought I’d be asleep right now…but I’ve got this wicked killer sinus headache and every time I close my eyes I feel like my head is in a vice that keeps turning tighter and tighter….so I’m going to grit it out…what’s another two hours? I figure by the time I get home, I can hop in the shower and be ready for a conference call I have in the morning…and I am absolutely going to shower when I get home, some sick bastard behind me just coughed up something grewsome and I swear I actually felt it…which is really not cool.

As for the rest of the trip…wow…I had a great time in New York. I spent my days at the Goldman Sachs Tower in Jersey City, which is the tallest building in New Jersey. Then each evening I would hop on the PATH train and arrive in New York with plans to meet my buddies and their fiancés.

On Tuesday night I met up with my old college roommate Kurtis. The last time Kurtis and I actually saw each other was at our wedding 5 years ago, so even though we speak to each other periodically, we had a lot of catching up to do. Apparently Kurtis and his fiancé Alma have been on a mission to find good Mexican food in the city and have yet to come up with much, so they elected to try a new place when I came out…we went to Mole on Christopher and Jane, which was totally awesome…the margaritas were served with a very spicy salt on the glass, the guacamole was excellent, and let me tell you about the fish tacos. They said that there were 3 to an order, and I was hungry so I figured “yeah, I can do 3”…I wish I had taken a picture of my plate when it came out…it was a very large dinner plate and the entire thing was covered in these three fish tacos. Each taco was the size of my two hands put together, and there was literally no way for me to fit one in my mouth. As they were double wrapped in tortillas, I ended up splitting one taco into two, and they were fantastic…unfortunately the two I ate were so filling that I ended up leaving the other two that they served me, which would have equated to about 4 tacos I wasted…wow.

After dinner, we searched for a bar where we could catch up some more over a pint. I had a great time reminiscing with Kurtis about our days at UofA, as well as getting the chance to get to know Alma. They seem to be very happy and I’m glad that they found each other.

On Wednesday night I got my second wind and headed back into the city to meet up with another of my college roommates, Matt, and his fiancé Laura. This time we elected to go for Italian food, so we went to Crispo on 14th St. between 7th and 8th…again, the food was great…we started off with fried risotto balls dipped in marinara, as well as some sort of stuffed Italian sausage appetizers…for dinner I ordered the spaghetti carbonara, which is apparently what the place is known for (so I had to try it)…the spaghetti was awesome, but apparently it’s authentic Italian to serve a fried egg on top that you mix in…I was a little weirded out by it at first ,but just went with the flow and really liked it.

We also hit up a pub after dinner to talk some more…and my buddies were two for two on their fiancés…I can honestly say (without trying to suck up since I don’t think that they read this anyways) that I really enjoyed meeting both ladies and I know am confident that both Matt and Kurtis are in good hands.

As for the rest of my trip…it basically went like this….work work work…no sleep…booze…lots of good food…no sleep…work work work…missing the family too much…and the travel day from hell.

It looks like I’ve got two hours to go…provided I can find my car when we arrive and then drive home without falling asleep, I’m gonna make it.

To all you that are sleeping right now while I type this…I’m jealous…sleep well and be thankful that you’re not flying Continental today.