Automobiles, Planes, and Trains

We spent all day yesterday – fifteen-point-five hours – getting back home from our four-day trip to San Antonio, Texas.  1,600 miles or so, which averages to a little over a hundred miles an hour.  Not bad, except for the fact we were in a pair of airplanes for six of them.

Fourth grade math aside, it was a hectic day.  For all you who commute for a living, you’ll just have to excuse me.  I’m comfortably a creature of habit, so anything outside my routine, outside my control, tends to stress me out on the continuum from mildly irked to completely freaked out.  I drive to and from work, every day, twelve miles there, twelve miles back, five days a week in my trusty Impala.  So, to write that the day was hectic, at least for me, is an understatement.

We spent the past four days outside of San Antonio at a ranch to attend my sister-in-law’s wedding.  Sunday we rose at 7, showered, packed up all our things in our rented VW Beetle, had breakfast, and hit the trail by 8:30, only a half-hour behind schedule due to some last minute good-byes and such.  We had an 80-mile trip northeast to the Austin airport, and had to get there, get the rental checked in, get through TSA security and to our gate by 12:30 to make our flight.  

It was a relaxing, scenic drive through Texas Hill Country, and we arrived at the airport in Austin in time to check in and get situated.  Then the fun began.  We had a connecting flight to Dallas to make with no time to spare, so naturally they announced this flight was packed and would be somewhat delayed.  Would we reach our connecting flight home in time?  Yes, but only after sprinting OJ-like at the airport in Dallas and negotiating their rickety skyline tram … only to find that that flight, too, would be delayed.  By two-and-a-half hours. 

So we had lunch in Dallas and watched CNN fomenting race riots on the big screen teevees.  The girls were alternating between antsy-ness and supreme fatigue.  Soon enough we boarded, rolled onto the runway … and sat in a line of a dozen aircraft awaiting takeoff.  At a rate of one plane every three minutes, we eventually got in the air about forty minutes after getting in line.

The flight itself to Newark, thankfully like the original flight to Austin three days prior and the earlier flight to Dallas, was uneventful.  I finished John Derbyshire’s excellent, moving, and touching Prime Obsession.  Little One wrote a five-page story.  (The wife sat with Patch, three rows up.)  Two-thirds into the flight we entered Night and the cabin darkened.  On descent my ears bugged me as they did on the descent three days earlier; blessed Little One helped out, generously sharing her stash of gum with me.

Fortunately our luggage survived the connection and made it to the Newark carousel.  Unfortunately the airline dropped us off at the wrong terminal, necessitating a trip on Newark’s rickety skyline tram.  Fortunately, our car was waiting for us in Long Term parking, fairly close to the airport entrance.  Unfortunately, the cost was $6 more a day than advertised, so there goes my B&N allowance for the week.  Fortunately, we got home before midnight on Sunday night.  Unfortunately, we got home before midnight on Sunday night.

So, we hoofed it, we drove, we rode the rails, we flew the friendly skies.  We got home after a full day of traveling, and now I’m back busy as a bee at work.

Tomorrow: highlights – and lowlights, I guess – from the actual Texas trip itself.