Outside the sun is setting... We are on board, on the ground, waiting for our last passengers to board... our fellow passengers are making last phone calls... The man ahead of us is angry... He was supposed to meet with someone, but she declined to meet with him... And he"is paid too much to have people refuse to meet with him" and is headed back to LA... I don't know whom"she" is but I think she made the right decision...
We are airborne, aboard Virgin America (still the best damn airline in the world) fight 942 to Los Angeles, and from there to Washington DC... The we is myself, and daughter Steph...
Our itinerary is a classic red eye, leave late in the day, try to sleep on board, land early the next morning... In our case at 5:55 am... At your destination. It is a trick that works best east bound... 6 hours of flying and three time zones can use up the darkness... West bound the same 3 time zones mean you can leave in the evening and arrive in time to catch Letterman... (Which can also be found on the seat back entertainment system....)
steph noticed that the little The (plastic) glass you get with your half a can of sprite has molded into the bottom "Wwas it as refreshing for you as it was for me". It was a tiny picture of an airplane too... When you are trapped on an airplane you have more time to notice strange things... which you then find amusing... We may be bored...
Dropping down, into LA... Fasten seat belt light on, tray tables need to be away.... With the new rules it not clear I f I need to shutdown the IPad... Below traffic is still heavy on the 405... Tonight not our issue... Now on the ground, We only have to walk across the terminal to our next gate... We have close to an hour and a half for said journey. A journey from gate 37B, all the way to gate 37A... So we find a place (Gladstones for Fish... An airport branch of a well known beach side fish house and sushi place, which on this occasion might have been out of sushi) for a glass of wine for Steph, a beer for me, and some fried calamari... LAX has no pubic wifi... But our phones can function as a hot spot, so we had some connectivity...Then return to wait a bit before boarding the next flight... They boarded all the very special groups, 1st class, exit rows, families with children, then groups A "for Awesome" B "for Baby Bottom" & C "for Coco puff"...Then all people over two feet tall... We had been assigned boarding group E, but we are over 2' tall... We ran for the jetway... Sadly we never learned the code names for D or E... We are probably better off for not knowing...
Once aboard we find the flight attendant from our previous flight... Settle in work on the blog, try with limited success to do some work on the computer and eventually try to sleep...
Now 5:00 am local time, the pilot announces that we have begun our decent...it's time to start to stirr... To prepare for landing... The lights of civilization now increasingly visible.
It gets a bit rough as we drop through a a few clouds... The lights below disappear, replaced by The planes flashing beacons, reflected back at us... As quickly as it starts, it is over and the city lights are back... Now closer... It looks like we are landing early... The gear drops... The runway lights appear... We are here...
We deplane... We make quick time though a mostly deserted airport... Our bags are the first off... By 5:55 (when the plane was scheduled to arrive) local time we are in the airport Starbucks... Our rental car place doesn't open until 7:00... There is story about renting the car... A long sad story involving three web sites, and multiple calls to customer service, one escalated to a supervisor... Once I have successful picked up the car I may spill the beans and tell the story..
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