Onto the new COrrier. This started with a bit of luck. I'd been planning to take an award trip to LAS the previous weekend, but never pulled the switch – a good thing, since the first big snow came then and I wouldn't have made it out.
This was President's weekend, though, so I was determined to do something. I don't get to do many of the classic domestic trips anymore.
The snows had ended, and on Friday the city began to return to normal – except for the traffic, since all of the suburbans decided to drive in, clogging the snow-narrowed roads. Washington's always bad-tempered, ‘specially on the roads, but this was quite a display. The Post had a cute headline – "Nightmare on L Street (and K, and M).” The hapless Metro had also had a bad day, having sent a train full of passengers onto a side track, where it derailed. (On my way to work, I'd seen a convoy of emergency vehicles trying to get to the scene, including the scarily-named "Mass Casualty Vehicle" and two "Ambulance Buses." Fortunately, there had been no casualties.)
13 FEB 10
DCA-IAH CO1059 F 1F B737-724 N15710 “710” (28780)
There hadn't been avail on the morning flights, so I was on the civilized 1:48p. They'd been a bit slow, but after the flight went to Y0 on Thursday my upgrade had come through.
I left very early for the airport, since I wasn't sure what to expect from Metro. They'd been running greatly reduced frequencies, and had scheduled major maintenance shutdowns for the long weekend. Happily, it seemed the maintenance had been cancelled, so I had a quick run to the airport.
I checked in at a kiosk, slightly amused to hear a pax ask whether one of the security people would escort her elderly mother to her gate. No, but they could offer a virtual strip search. With time to spare, I headed to the old terminal, now scrubbed of NW – though there were two red tails on the field. (And some Deltaflots – they seem much less anxious to repaint those). I looked around the exhibition area for a bit, then headed to my gate. A Red-tailed -9 was there, delayed to DTW. Three agents were huddled over a terminal, trying to figure things out. You get a lot of that at DelWest these days.
Over at my gate I saw something shocking – a phalanx of rampers in position, waiting for the arriving aircraft. And a phalanx of gate agents helping pax. What gives? They’re supposed to come strolling out while the aircraft sits with engines running. What kind of operation is this?
While I was at the newstand buying a paper a TSAgent yelled:
"WHOSE BAG IS THIS?"
It was sitting on the ground, and belonged to the customer at the register, maybe six feet away, who was apologetic.
"WE DON'T DO UNATTENDED BAGS AT THE AIRPORT"
Yeesh. Maybe six feet away. BDIFS.
We boarded early, and I settled into my big leather seat. Flight had been zeroed, but no call for vols and they seemed open to standbys.
There was a lot of crowding during boarding, including quite a bit of gate checking, but once things settled down, we were offered bevs, though I failed to get my jacket hung.
We pushed back a few early, and I got nice views of still-snowy DC and then of Dulles before it clouded over.
CO had an exotic substitute for looking out of the window – “in-flight entertainment.” The downside – it was an Adam Sandler movie. Ech. Audio was OK though.
Then another strange development – hot towels, followed by a snack, even though even I couldn't argue that it was mealtime. The snack came on a tray, with full dishes, cloth napkin, and silverware. The snack plate had turkey, salami and cheese on a bed of lettuce, with carrots and cucumber strips, and was accompanied by crackers (in a china bowl), an L&Q dessert and a generous fruit bowl (two types of melon, pineapple, grapes, slices of orange and pink grapefruit). No Delta, this.
I had an NG Traveler, which sadly had a short piece on Haiti. No travelers there for a while. And it had an ad for BoISe Vibrant. I was horrified, though, to see that my new carrier doesn't serve there. I'm reconsidering. (They used to have a purgatorial ERJ from IAH).
The weather cleared up as we progressed, and I began to look out. Over Alabama I got a nice look at a DL 75 going by – I could almost see the hungry pax. I'm used to flying more northerly routes, of course, and in doing so at almost every town I can spot an airport, which I can later identify. Many fewer airports here, at least till we got to Louisiana, where I spotted Jena, Pollock Municipal and Alexandria airports. I saw two mysterious fields inside
I had a longish layover, so I headed over to D, where the interesting stuff was – LH and BA Queens, QR, EK, KL, AF and SQ, bound for SIN via Moscow (dat would be a fun one). The QR behaved strangely – taxiing in, then out to a remote stand, then to the gate quite a bit later. No idea. On the non-CO monitors, pride of place (well, third place) was a YX/F9 codeshare, to... eh, never mind.
IAH-SNA CO1511 F 1F B737-724 N24715 “715” (28786)
I then headed over to shiny terminal E, where I noticed my aircraft hadn't arrived – late from Roatan. The wait got slightly tedious.
Then I heard a call: one volunteer needed, fly tomorrow, for $300 plus vouchers. I'm slowing down – by the time I realized it wouldn't affect my plans much, someone was there. The agent apparently took her seat immediately, causing the red coat to reprimand her. It sounded like the pax had been in F, but since the seat had been lost, the red coat ordered compensation regardless of the bump. I also heard her telling them to rush – "no crossing of seat belts."
We started boarding a few minutes past scheduled departure time. A couple with a small baby asked if they could be moved together – umm... you didn't ask the agents why? There was a slight boarding delay to replace a seat cushion; we had jackets hung and bevs. I watched to see if the vol would board, but my attention wandered, so I didn't see her – and 2B did remain empty. Whatever.
After takeoff, we got hot towels again while they took bev orders. I had a Heiney, but passed on cashews. And dinner orders. Hot! Choice was sliders or kung pao shrimp, both with broccoli cheese soup. I skipped the soup and had the sliders, which I thought were a pretty neat meal, served with a small plastic dish with a full array of fixins, and a salad, which was topped with pecans and so left untouched. They’re not too popular in the Aanother place though. After trays were cleared, a blueberry/peach tart was served separately for dessert.
With a bit of reading, time passed pretty quickly and I was surprised when we started our descent. Some forceful deceleration, and we parked at a surprisingly-empty and shuttered terminal. And I jumped the shuttle to my hotel, along with our pilots, who talked about commuting. Pilots, after all.
Oh, yeah, where was I? SNA.
14 FEB 10
After booking, I had realized that there wasn't much I wanted to do there, though, so I decided to drive inland. Hertz provided a brand new (150 miles) Mazda 3, one of the best cars I've driven. So much better.
My route took me off the interstate onto the toll roads. I hadn't realized California had them, but they were great – excellent roads, nice and empty. I then got back into the traffic, as I headed to my destination – Joshua Tree National Park. The park is fantastic – established to protect the rare namesake tree, of course, but also full of geological wonder, especially where granite had oozed into interesting shapes between the pinto gneiss. (How's that Mappie?).
It was fairly clear, so there were also gorgeous views, to the north of snow capped mountains, and to the south all the way to the
I did some hiking, spending longer than planned, and just as it was getting dark stopped at an immense cholla patch. The last rays of the sun illuminated each, so each seemed to be glowing from within. Aweseome.
Of course that left me driving out in the dark, which became a bit of a challenge, as I didn't know where I was going. My overnight destination was
15 FEB 10
There's a fair amount to do in PS, and I considered my program carefully. I wanted to take the tram to San Jacinto Peak – John Muir wrote that "the view… [was] the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth!" – but was also interested – as always – in some architecture. Palm Springs has a huge collection of mid-20th century modern buildings, and in fact the annual celebration – Modern Week – was underway, though most of their events were sold out, and some frankly kinda ridiculous. ($50 for an hour-long house tour?)
I actually hadn't been able to research much, so I decided that the architecture could wait for a later trip – but a tourist magazine in my room showed the way to some highlights, so it was back on the agenda.
I was going to do the tram first, but decided the sun would be too low on the view side, so I went first with architecture, highlighted by Neutra's stunning Kaufman house (for Edgar Kaufman, who also commissioned Falling Water), Albert Frey’s Visitor's Center, built as a gas station to welcome people to the city, and – my favourite – an amazing bank, designed by Victor Gruen and inspired by Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel. Incredible.
All seen, I headed to the tram – the world's largest revolving one (and the terminal a modern masterpiece too, also by Frey). Alas, the wait was at least an hour and a half. Should have trammed first.
The local news had reported hours-long backups on I-10 the previous day, as a result of a fatal motorcycle crash – one of two in the valley that day. So I was a bit anxious about getting back, and decided to leave.
I encountered pockets of very heavy traffic, but it wasn't too long till I was dumped off the toll road into Irvine – where I saw two airship hangars. I went to investigate, and found that they were the Naval base at Tustin, and are two of the world’s largest wooden structures – though as with hangar One, their future is uncertain.
With the reamaing daylight I headed to Surfing City USA, Huntington Beach, spending a pleasant couple of hours getting some food (and superb gelato) and walking around. After the sun dipped into the sea (sizzzzzle.....) behind the oil rigs I headed back to SNA
SNA-EWR CO1686 T 7F B737-724 N24702 “702” (28763)
It was time to return. I'd checked a couple of times and flight was ontime. I withdrew my BOs from the kiosk (had used auto check in), to be told my itin had changed. Instead of the 7 am to DCA, getting me in well early for a busy day of work, I was on a 1 pm. Uh oh.
A helpful agent looked for me – the 7 and 9 a.m. were cxld, along with IAD and BWI. The only option she could see was to take a shuttle to LAX and go from IAH, but it would have me in the air during an important conference call, and wouldn't get me in that much earlier. So I gave up.
I headed through security, watching my inbound come in and having a boring couple of hours. I was a bit surprised to see both FedEx and UPS departing – hadn’t realized they flew there.
Anyway, I'd been #1 on the ug list when I checked in, but had fallen to five, with none open, so it wasn’t looking good. The agent had told me I had a row, and certainly an empty seat, but at the last minute two guys squeezed in, the rotund one in the middle. Meanwhile the pax behind me practiced knee-boxing with my back. It would be a long one. Win some, lose some.
We departed a bit early – like that helped – with the patented SNA throttleback. A big turn over the ocean, and we headed east. Nothing to enjoy about this flight. The movie was about LeBron James, for some reason, followed by the Adam Sandler once again. The separate audio didn't work, so I skipped the bev service and napped slightly. I know.
16 FEB 10
At about 4:30 the lights came on, and we landed in an overcast but fine
EWR-DCA CO2909 T 6A DHC-8-402 [9L/Colgan]
I looked at the boards – they'd cancelled all, or close to all – of the Express and Connection flights. Including mine. I counted 48 cancellations before 9 a.m. Apparently it had been a preemptive decision, but once cancelled that's it. The weather was actually OK, and the FAA showed no delays. Awesome.
So I spent a miserable eight hours on the concourse, bored out of my mind and stressed out about the work I needed to do, two days before leaving for Paris. I did do my conference call, trying to find a quiet corner in the closed Elite Access checkin area, which forced me to go back through the teeming security. TSAgent said chaos was due to "extra flights." Not. Mainline seemed to be doing OK, except that they were bringing a replacement aircraft for LHR – but announced that no delay was expected. I noticed later that it was expected to go at noon, vs. a 9 am schedule. Still, two hours better than me.
They had the annoying CNN playing, and I again heard the ad with... never mind. The USAToday that occupied about three minutes of the wait noted that state representative Dennis Lake had suggested the State not pay cost of living adjustments to retirees while they were furloughing employees. The state: you know. Dateline: you know not to mind.
Meanwhile, I'm sure the genius that did the cancelling was patting himself on the back for his foresight and for the hundreds of thousands in departure fees it had saved.
The honeymoon was over.
EWR-DCA CO3395 T 1B DHC-8-402 N190WQ “779” (4190) [9L/Colgan]
The kiosks had insisted on asking me if I wanted to volunteer for $200, but flight wasn't even half full – strangely, since SNAgent had worked quite hard to get me a seat assignment, leaving me with 19A. I had changed it at a kiosk.
And ironically, it began snowing hard as we did go. The captain noticed that the APU was inop, and asked agent to call for an air cart. She said she wouldn't know whom to call. At this point FAA was announcing a ground hold. Awesome work!
Anyway, there was no jetway, so we got to enjoy the snow. Maybe twenty pax, with about five nonrevs. Not many for three flights’ worth. We were ready to go on time, and closed the door. The captain said there might be a push back delay, then changed his mind to say we were ready to go. We didn't, so he announced a "few minutes" wait, which turned into thirty.
And of course we now needed to deice. There were about five aircraft waiting in each lane, so it would take "a few minutes." And of course even I know it takes ten minutes to deice a plane, so it took an hour. We took off, finally, at 2:40.
They did do an almost-full beverage service again (though no coffee). We finally landed at 3:30, just 7 1/2 hours late for me. The 35 minute flying time was 50. The ten more minutes before landing, twenty. Do they think that helps?
Eh, the luck just ran out. But the honeymoon was over.
