Traveling Tales

Ok, I'm not exactly a frequent flyer, and I travel for business about once a year, if that. But this year I had to fulfill an obligation to go up north twice in one month. So I got to see what the life of the frequent business traveler is like.

It's really boring. And you have no way of knowing how long any trip is actually going to take. And even knitting is not enough to make it pleasant.

I flew from LAX to SFO to a little place called Chico on Thursday afternoon. Smooth as silk. Enough time to hang out in LAX for a while and knit, then an hour flight over interesting landscape, avec knitting, and then a little while to scope out the food choices in San Francisco (Impressive. Dim sum at the airport? A soup bar? Who knew?)

And then I arrived at the Post-office-sized airport in Chico and got right into a Holiday Inn shuttle and whisked to my hotel room.

I ended up eating dinner a little later than normal (8-ish) and I over-ate some yummy shrimp fettuccine with pancetta (and 3 slices of warm bread with lots of butter) and then found that a heavy meal right before bed is not such a good idea. I watched The Office for the first time on tv and laughed, and fell asleep (I made sure I had some Ambien in my little case, and then left it home, but luckily I didn't need it) despite a rumbly tumbly.

Friday, I got a ride to Butte College and did the Basic Skills presentation, and then got a ride back to the airport. I knew I would be early, since the only flight out was at 6:10 and the conference ended at 3, so I was anticipating about a 3 hour wait. But when I arrived, the passengers from the 2 pm flight were still waiting, and I was told that my flight would go at 8:30 rather than 6. Ho boy, 5 1/2 hours in an airport so small that all they have in the way of food is a candy machine!

I decided to check out the rather remote neighborhood, and discovered a ratty little roadhouse about 10 minutes away, and got a bottle of water, mainly to get dollar bills in case I needed candy. I talked to Kristen for an hour as I roamed around, and I talked to Sam for a while as well. And then I waited. And knit. And waited. And knit. And walked back to the ratty roadhouse and got a (delicious!) hamburger for supper. I admired the sunset, and then waited some more, and finally I was just too tired to knit another stitch.

After a seemingly endless wait, we flew to San Francisco, arriving in perfect time for the 10:15 flight out, only to be told that that flight was going to be delayed until 11:30 pm. By this time, I was barely in my body. So I waited again, finally arriving in LA at 1:30 am (I don't even remember all the details, but apparently we left at more like 12:30.) And then I step outside to find that it's raining rather steadily (for the first time in 6 months) and I wait for the shuttle to take me back to my car, which is parked in a very close, very convenient parking lot.

Except that the shuttle doesn't come. After seeing every other parking shuttle cruise by 2 or 3 times, I call the Park N Fly lot, and they say, ok, we'll send the shuttle over. I wait some more. Everyone else is gone. Another group of passengers arrive, they all get picked up, and I hear another guy calling and asking, Do you even have any shuttles running? I ask him where he's parked, and no surprise, it's Park N Fly. It was 2 o'clock by the time I finally got back to my car. The nice lady driving the shuttle informed us that 2 drivers didn't show up tonight because it was raining and they don't like to drive in the rain. And then I had to drive home on the 405. In the rain. I don't like to drive in the rain either, especially when I'm so tired I'm having out of body experiences. I drove slowly, since there wasn't a lot of traffic at that ungodly hour. The road looked totally unfamiliar in all that dark and rain. But thankfully, I finally made it home by 2:30 am. Gee, only 11 1/2 hours after the conference ended!

I did not feel bad about my 50 mph speed when I heard this morning that a bunch of big rigs had a huge pileup on another road and turned a tunnel into an inferno that may have caused structural damage to I-5, the main road between southern and northern California. I might have looked like a granny, but I got home safely!

This morning I woke up at 6 am, same as always, and decided just to lay in bed and drink coffee and enjoy being supine. I went to Borders and perused the Kaffe Fassett book and knit a bit on the Pine Tree Scarf. My eyes are really burned out from sock knitting at the moment. The Pine Tree Scarf remains at the exact same length and with the exact same half-a-ball of yarn left, no matter what I do. It refuses to be finished. I really should finish that and the mittens before I press on with the sock, since they have to be mailed to Maine for Christmas, while the sock just has to go under the tree. Christmas seemed a long ways off, but it's rapidly approaching. September to December is gift-knitting season! The reward at the end is that I get to start on my Minimalist Cardigan. And I get to have nice gifts to give! :-)