OK, it’s time to write another travel blog. It’s been a long time, way too long, probably
because I’d gotten into a rut where travel had become drudgery rather than an
adventure. I still have a love/hate
relationship with flying due to the turbulence/bumps/choppy air that we’re
going through as I write this. Well,
better not to dwell on that, I’ll be home from one of my shortest business
trips ever, three days, and back in the normal swing of things with Jennifer,
the kids, the dog, the garden, the screech owl family in one of our live oak
trees, real barbecue and Texas in the spring.
This trip was a short jaunt to Boston. I was a bit bummed because I wasn’t going to
be able to fly direct. I’d done a good
job over the past few years of getting direct flights out of Austin, usually
for the cheapest fare too. You can get
to a lot of places from Austin these days direct; I’ve made it to Minneapolis,
San José, LA, Orlando, New York City! (I’ve taught Graham to say it in the
voice of the cowboy in the old Pace Picante sauce commercial), Washington, DC
and Phoenix. Why? Usually cuts your travel time in half,
reduces the risk of being delayed and eliminates an extra take-off and
landing.
I have the option when booking business travel of traveling
exclusively with one airline for the benefit of racking up the frequent flyer
miles. I could do that but choose not to
because it’s not worth it. I have many
road warrior colleagues who fly with one airline solely to maximize the miles
but also to achieve the VIP statuses like Medallion and Executive Platinum that
give you perks like access to the private airport lounges and upgrades to first
or business class. This forces them to
fly via one airline every time even if the timing isn’t optimal. Me?
I’ll happily skip the layover in Dallas/Chicago (American),
Chicago/Houston (United), etc. A fun
fact about some or maybe all of the VIP statuses is that you have to fly a
certain number of miles and/or flights each year to stay in it. I’d heard of one person using miles to get
four flights in at the end of the year just to maintain their status.
I still dread flying into clouds though I’ve narrowed down
the trepidation to thick clouds. It
still drives me nuts that I have this dread but the good thing is that I work
through it and don’t embarrass myself on the plane (except the occasional hard
bump which will cause me to grab the seat in front of me, ha). The FAA lets you use small electronic devices
during take-off and landing now so I listen to music for both if the weather
looks suspect (thick clouds, high winds, rain, etc.). You still have to wait until 10,000 feet to
use the larger devices like laptops but that’s ok. I’d read that I should start associating
flying with positive things so I always bring some good books and some movies
to watch. The thing is that I’m still
too nerve-wracked to read and sometimes even concentrate on the movie. For some reason I’m able to type this though
which is awesome though I’m definitely going to need to edit it later (and then
have Jennifer edit it again).
Usually I travel on a Sunday so that I can be in the office
first thing Monday morning. I know
you’re really supposed to travel on the weekdays but I figure I don’t travel
often enough to say that my life is being completely taken away. Traveling on Sunday is a small sacrifice that
the family and I can take. However, the
Sunday I would have departed was Mother’s Day and what kind of Mother’s Day is
it if the Father has to spend most of it away?
To reach Boston before the end of the work day with a
connection in Chicago (sing with me, “On the South Side of Chicago, in the
baddest part of town...”), I needed to take a 6:30 flight. I actually love early morning flights when
there is good visibility because watching the sun come up while you’re taking
off is pretty cool. The earth looks so
different in early morning light than in midday, afternoon and early evening
light, for whatever reason, perhaps because in Central Texas we have so many
low clouds that burn off in the morning.
I dunno.
Waking up at 4 in the morning was a small price to pay for
being able to stay home on the Sunday. Now
single people and people with no kids don’t have to deal with what I as a
father of children have to deal with: leaving the house in a manner quiet
enough to avoid waking one of the kids, especially the 20-month old. Then not only am I leaving Jennifer by
herself but I’m leaving her with a kid who she’s going to have to attempt to
put back to sleep at an ungodly early hour.
Lucky for her I’m a professional; I’d showered the night before and had
my clothes and suitcase out in the living room ready to go.
Oops, the 20-month old did wake up. He was already a little restless and
basically me sneaking back into the house for my jacket (you can’t go to the
northeast without a jacket, regardless of the time of year) and the ultimate
toddler-waker, Maisy the Psycho Pooch, got him up. I ran into Jennifer in the hall as she was
checking on him and she wasn’t happy.
Without further ado, I got the heck out of there, said goodbye to the
dog and hit the road.
The four year old has been old enough for a while to know
that I’m gone for a while and that I’ll be back soon. The twenty-month old still doesn’t but I
don’t think he gets too worked up about it thankfully. And eventually he’ll be old enough to
understand. Not so the dog. Poor dog.
She’ll lay down with her head on the windowsill watching the driveway
for long stretches of the day. She’ll
stay out in the living room long after Jennifer goes to bed, waiting and
eventually giving up. I think she’s
smart enough to remember that I leave for long stretches at a time though so
that’s something. Or maybe it’s just me
making myself feel better.
Anyway, so I hit the road at 4:30 in the morning to get to
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
It’s not only international because there are three vacation
destinations in Mexico you can get to but also you can catch a British Airways
flight direct to London. How cool is
that? Long ago during my one trip to
London I caught a US Airways flight from Charlotte and joked about how London
should beware of letting North Carolinians have such easy access to them. Now we’ve got the British Airlines twitter
feed joking about wanting breakfast tacos.
Wow.
As I’ve written before I love Austin-Bergstrom due to its
small size. I parked in long-term
parking and walked to the terminal.
Growing up in Houston you had to park like five miles away and catch a
shuttle. Granted, most people take a
shuttle at Austin-Bergstrom but if you want to walk it’s less distance than you
walk sometimes between terminals at large airports. I also walked because I didn’t have any bills
smaller than a twenty and I always tip the driver of the shuttle, even if I
carry my own bag. Come to think of it, I
don’t think I got any ones while on this trip.
Guess I’m walking again tonight when I get back!
Monday morning is a busy time at the airport because of the
road warriors traveling on business for the week. It’s common to be on a schedule of flying out
on Monday, working like heck through Thursday afternoon and flying home
Thursday evening. My seatmate on the
United flight to Chicago was employed by a company based in Chicago. When home he works out of his house but he’s
up in Chicago a lot. I guess people
think it’s worth it (or that’s the only employment option). Anyway, there seemed like a lot of flights
for early morning and I presume that was the reason.
I sauntered down to the United end of the terminal (AUS only
has one). Oh yes, I dropped the three
character airport code on you. If you
want to be a jerk about flying, don’t bother writing airport names but instead
use the code. Heh heh, I know that ORD
is Chicago O’Hare and you don’t, neener neener neener. Austin with AUS is easy but some others take
some deciphering. IAH. Houston Intercontinental. LGA.
New York LaGuardia. NRT. Tokyo Narita.
See what I mean?
Anyway, airlines usually own their own gates and have them
clustered together. Southwest has the
prime real estate right in the middle of the half moon-shaped terminal. United’s is down at one end. There were flights boarding for Houston and
San Francisco (SFO) which led to an interesting airport phenomenon: the drama
of a flight trying to leave but waiting for late passengers to show up. You have to feel sorry for the gate agents
sometimes. The San Francisco lady would
keep walking out into the aisle watching for people running. When they’d get close she’d tell them “You
made it” and hold out her hands in a motion to slow down. The Houston gate agent didn’t do that but
that’s because he had to stay by the door.
The gate agents try to be sympathetic sometimes and these seemed like
it. However, there’s also a sense of
frustration when people can’t get there.
It’s one thing to be delayed because you’re flying in from somewhere
else and that flight was delayed. I’ve
been in that situation several times, once running through the Memphis airport
(I made it but so did a lady on the same flight who only walked, darn her),
once while running through my old stomping grounds at Houston Intercontinental
between terminals (made that one too but I got the feeling when I got there
they would have held it for me since it was a late night/last flight of the
night) and again in Intercontinental back in maybe 2005 when Jennifer and I
were completely ignored by the gate agent after she had closed the gate, as if
it was our fault that our flight was late.
Anyway, when your flight leaves at 6:15 in the morning you’re not
arriving on the red eye from somewhere else, you woke up somewhere nearby. So if you’re late, well, it’s hard not to
think it was because you had a hard time getting out of bed.
Everybody made the Houston flight but not so the San
Francisco. The gate agents kept
referring to the (name redacted) party of four.
Party of four? Must be a family
going for vacation or something! You
can’t have the family of four going on vacation with probably two beautiful
little children miss the flight!!! Well,
a guy in his twenties comes running up and it’s determined that he is one of
the party of four. He doesn’t seem
excited to have made it because he’s by himself. Where were the others? Well, he had his phone out and was telling
someone that they needed to run! I could
hear the response from where I was sitting: “I’m coming!” The gate agents must have waited two minutes
and then, after delaying the flight waiting for these people, closed the
gate. Once that sucker’s closed they
don’t open it up again. Well, about a
minute later three people in their twenties come half-running up. You would expect a ton of disappointment to
learn they’d missed the flight. Nope,
these guys seemed to be happy to be able to sit down and rest. I couldn’t help but think they’d just had
trouble getting out of bed that morning.
Maybe I’m wrong but regardless, they were rebooked onto the afternoon
United flight to SFO instead. I hope
they were well-rested by the time that flight came around; waiting in the
airport all day for a flight stinks.
Maybe they went back home and took a nap.
The San Francisco flight was actually at my gate. It was delayed so long that we left a half
hour late (I think it would have been delayed anyway). I had an hour and twenty minute layover in
Chicago so I wasn’t worried about missing it.
It stinks to be in a plane that was delayed and worrying whether you’re
going to make the connection. Better to
be in a plane that’s late when it’s your final flight of the day.
I had checked my suitcase($25 bag fee ) but realized there’s
a way you can get around that. Bring
your suitcase/roller bag with you, presuming it’s small enough to fit in the
overhead bin, and get on with the last group of people. So many people bring all their luggage on the
plane (well, there’s a two bag limit) that by the time the final 10-25% of the
passengers are getting on the bins are totally full. What’s an airline to do? Gate check!
You get your luggage put in the hold and all you have to do is wait for
it on the gangway once everyone deplanes.
Voila, you don’t have to hassle with stowing the bag (and getting on the
airplane at the beginning like cows going to the auction) and instead get to
relax a bit without paying the bag fee.
I only carry a satchel bag which always fits under the seat in front of
me; therefore, I’m never in a hurry to get on board. Why hurry if you don’t have to stow a
bag? You’ll get to spend enough time on
the darn thing soon enough.
The plane was a United Express plane run by a contract
airline, I think gojet. It was seriously
the most cramped plane I’d been on.
United’s new cash-generating scheme is to add an Economy Plus class with
FOUR EXTRA INCHES (all caps = sarcasm).
I think the fee is an extra $39.
Well, I think they make the regular Economy seats smaller to not only
accommodate the roomier seats up front but also to make you more miserable and
thus more likely to upgrade. My knees just
about brushed the seat in front of me, the seatback pocket was too small to
hold my book and my water bottle and the side of the airplane jutted out at the
bottom of few inches forcing me to scrunch my feet more together. Awesome.
I hate United. Just because
you’re the biggest airline doesn’t mean you’re the best.
The weather forecast was for thunderstorms in Austin but
thankfully not until the afternoon. We
took off into a cloudy sky which limited the view of the ground about two
minutes into the flight. Oh well. I had a window seat but didn’t make much use
of it as I decided to close the window during the turbulent parts (and there
were more than a few bumps though no major ones). We descended through a couple of layers of
clouds into Chicago and I was reminded why I love flying: watching a city from
above as you descend. I love flying into
Chicago because the city is so interesting from the air and you sometimes fly
out over Lake Michigan to land. In this
case we came in from the west, did a 180 over Lake Michigan and floated on in
for a landing. Awesome.
OK, so I wrote all of the above on the flight from Detroit
back to Austin. Amazing. I guess I was kind of inspired. But eventually I got tired of typing and
switched to reading a book. And of
course I didn’t write anything else for a week and a half. Ugh.
Oh well, here’s the second half of the travelogue, toned down I’m sure
due to forgetting some key details and losing some of my indignance.
It’s always nice when catching a connection, you only have
to walk about 50 feet to get to your next gate. Airlines like to have their gates together
at the airports and thus if you’re catching a domestic connection odds are you
won’t have to go far. If you’re catching
an international flight after a domestic one, in my experience this rule does
not apply.
One thing I have never gotten good at, and I think I don’t
want to be good at, is multi-tasking while talking on a cell phone. While catching up with Jennifer about my
flight and what was going on at home I didn’t realize my flight was boarding,
despite the fact I was staring right at the check-in desk. The problem was that the gate right next to
the check-in desk wasn’t my gate; my gate was actually behind a large partition
where everyone was queuing up. I think
it was the ‘Final boarding call for Flight ###’ that got my attention. Bye Jennifer, time to board the plane! No way I’m checking onto a plane and talking
on the cell phone at the same time!
I don’t remember much about the flight to Boston except it
was bumpy for the first half and that the flight number only had three digits
as opposed to my flight from Austin, which had four. Airlines apparently give more ‘prestigious’
routes the smaller numbers. I don’t know
why Boston thinks it’s so uppity that its Chicago flight gets one digit fewer
than my Austin one. Just another reason
to hate United, eh.
Boston’s Logan airport isn’t a bad little airport. It’s right on the water which always makes
for an
interesting take-off and landing if you have a window seat. When leaving in the rental car (a VW Passat),
you’re forced to go into the crazy tunnel system that they’ve got under
downtown. It would be cool except that
the signage is pretty poor about which lane to be in. Seriously, any highway likely to have a large
percentage of out-of-towners needs better-than-average signage. Not all of us cheat and use GPS!
As many of you are aware I’d grown tired of hotels, despite
my limited traveling, a long time ago, seeking out bed and breakfasts
instead. Well, I hit the jackpot this
time: the Desiderata!
Not only was it in a neighborhood, not only was it in
somebody’s house, but it had the following:
-
Poor signage (had to throw that in there)
-
A snow/mud room to enter through
-
Two octogenarian proprietors who were
o
Rabid Red Sox fans (they watch the games every
night)
o
Medical volunteers in Haiti
o
Keeping the place open to help pay the tax bill
o
Suspicious of me when I told them I had
forgotten to bring cash for the stay
-
Photos of their eight kids all over the house
-
No other guests (maybe this was a bad thing)
The house was quite spartan but I don’t ask for much. It felt the most like home of any B&B
I’ve ever been in. I got to talk with
Mona, one of the proprietors, quite a bit; it just added to the whole ‘staying
in someone’s house’ vibe. Even though I
don’t care about baseball I made a point to ask her about how the Red Sox game
my second night was going. “They’re down
two but Big Papi went deep!”
Awesome. Thanks for the great
stay Mona.
One thing about the Northeast: it’s very, um, woody. Everything feels like it’s just been carved
out of the forest. The roads are two
lane and windy. Just very, very
rustic-feeling, even when you’re not too far away from the big city. The Desiderata’s location allowed me to drive
those side roads to and from work while avoiding the crazy traffic-clogged
major highway while listening to the local NPR station (the big story: the
trial of the Boston Marathon bombers’ friends).
After a couple of days of work I headed back to Logan for a
late afternoon flight to Detroit (Rock City!).
I am a good business traveler, spending about an
hour and a half on conference calls and catching up on e-mails while waiting
for my flight to board. However, I am
not a good enough business traveler to have conference calls while doing other
things. I have seen people on conference
calls in the following situations:
-
Going through airport security
-
Getting on, riding and getting off the airport
bus (it was a medical doctor’s con call discussing some new procedure)
-
Getting checked in for a flight and waiting in
the gangway
Oh well, maybe that will be me the next flight. I guess I’m not important enough or don’t
travel enough to have such conflicts. I
should be thankful.
The flights home were via Delta, my inexplicably favorite US
airline besides Alaska Air. Why
Delta? Because they are more likely to
have flight attendants with a sense of humor (Flight Attendant: “I will be
joined today by my new wife, Donna, and my ex-wife, Claudette”) and their
in-flight safety videos do not make the mistake of taking themselves
seriously. Quite the opposite, actually. Here’s the link to their latest:
It’s the little things, airlines. I don’t know why I like Alaska Airlines;
probably because of the smiling Eskimo on the tailfin.
I’m a dork, I was excited to fly through Detroit just
because I’d never been there and I could feel like maybe, in some small way, I
was helping revitalize the textbook case of urban decay in the US, ha. Too bad the flight stunk as we had to avoid a
big line of thunderstorms heading east.
United will show you, on every TV screen in their waiting area, the
national weather map just so you can’t miss the huge line of thunderstorms
running north to south that is preceded by the big blinking squares indicating
really severe weather. Thanks a lot United. I have to look at it and think to myself,
“Well, the line ends just south of Detroit...right?” No, it didn’t. We had to go around it but luckily didn’t
have to land through it. Seriously, one
of these days I’m not going to care about the weather while flying but it
hasn’t happened yet.
After boarding the flight to Austin, I thought about one of
the most interesting feelings while doing business travel: the feeling you have
when you board your final flight of the day, particularly after you’ve just
completed one or more international flights.
You feel like this last flight is a piece of cake, a minor impediment to
getting home. After all, you started out
your day in Mumbai/Tokyo/Munich! This
last leg will be cake! Of course, it
makes it even more annoying when you last flight is delayed. The thought is “Darn it, I’ve been traveling
all day, I don’t deserve to be held up NOW”.
Though of course it’s always better, in my opinion, to be delayed while
on your own continent.
The flight to Austin was slightly bumpy for the first half
but after that opened up and was quite nice.
Somehow I scammed not only sitting on the 2-seat side of a 2-3 plane but
also avoided having a seatmate on a nearly full flight. I half-expected someone in a middle seat on
the 3 side to move but no one did. Maybe
they could tell I was someone who didn’t like turbulence.
And, after maybe 2.5 hours in the air, we were back home in
sweet, sweet Austin! It’s such a
wonderful feeling to fly back to the city you know to be home, to walk through
the empty and quiet terminal, to swiftly collect your luggage and take a quiet
starlit stroll through the parking garage, past the new construction, over
three curbs with your roller bag, into your moonlit car that you hope isn’t too
hot from that day’s heat, all the while looking forward to the non-smiling face
of the bored parking lot attendant as you leave. Home sweet home! At least until the next trip.
