Planes, Trains & Automobiles Redux

Happy Valentine Day!! We’re in Los Angeles, again. And very happy to be here.

The saga continues…

I’m not fond of flying because I have asthma and I had a scary incident on a flight several years ago which resulted in my having to have oxygen. It wasn’t pleasant and it put me off that mode of transportation for quite some time. That’s when I thought train travel was the way to go (if I couldn’t drive which I just love). Well, those of you who have followed this winter’s journey know how THAT turned out. Those of you who are just joining our adventures may want to scroll down to some of the older posts describing our travels with Amtrak.

I was feeling pretty positive. We were at the airport in Seattle in plenty of time for me to browse through some of the shops and have a latte before we boarded the plane. I had my inhaler and decided that using it before flying would probably be wise. So I did.

We didn’t have a direct flight. That was the first mistake. We were flying to Las Vegas and changing planes there for the last short leg to Los Angeles.

For starters, the leg room was not measurably better than the legroom on that awful bus we had to ride in Oregon, if you remember THAT incident. I’m not kidding. You can ask Jack. NO leg room.

The poor guy on the other side of the aisle not only had to contend with that but there was an enormous young man (repeat, enormous) in the seat ahead of him who was so big that when he sat back in his seat, it reclined. It couldn’t be helped – he was so big that the seat just leaned way back.

The flight attendant, of course, did his pre-flight check and pointed out to this enormous person that his seat needed to be in an upright position before taking off. The guy pulled it up but then, when he leaned back, there it went, again……so what’re ya gonna do? At least he wasn’t in front of me. Wonder of wonders…

So the flight was relatively uneventful. We had our complimentary beverage and a bag of snack mix. Maybe a quarter of a cup in each bag. Maybe. No big deal. We paid five bucks for a snack box of crackers and chicken salad, a snack bar of some sort, a little bag of cookies and a bag of fruit and nut mix.

I ate the fruit and nut mix and Jack had the snack bar and a couple of the nickle-sized cookies. I got ginger ale and Jack had orange juice. I put the can of chicken salad and the crackers in our carry-on thinking it could be a snack later, after we got to the apartment.

We were about 20 minutes out of Las Vegas when we hit a very windy patch. I’m told that that’s how it is when you’re flying over the desert. Something about the hot air on the ground crashing into the cool air from above the clouds. But it was also very windy. The weather report from the captain said that it was windy and about 75 degrees in Las Vegas.

Well, we bumped along and had more than our fair share of that feeling that the plane has dropped a bit but your stomach didn’t? Know what I mean? I wasn’t feeling very well. I tried to close my eyes and think pleasant thoughts. But we just kept bouncing and rolling along and finally much to my dismay I lost my cookies (or rather my fruit and nuts and ginger ale) into that convenient little bag that they stow in the pocket of the seat ahead of you. I was as ladylike as I could be, I want you to know, and I was (I think) fairly quiet. I didn’t look at Jack. I didn’t look at anyone. I did ask Jack to give me his little bag, too, just in case. Talk about a humbling experience.

We finally landed. Had about 45 minutes before the next little leg to L.A. Boy, I did NOT want to get back on another airplane. At least, not until the wind went down. I’d have given anything for a car right about then. But I hung in there, climbed aboard the next plane and we made it to Los Angeles without further incident.

The weather is lovely. Cool but sunny. Jack is going to go to the L.A. Open at the Riviera Country Club tomorrow. I might go, too.

Will keep you posted.

By the way, if you have never seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, you’ve just got to rent it. It’s a classic.