September 17, 2011

Chapter 1
Here We Gooooooooo

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(Originally posted September 11, 2012)

I had to set my alarm for the earliest it had ever been set as we prepared to leave. At around 4:00 we were rudely awakened by it and stumbled out of bed. We got ready, tried to decide what type of breakfast we wanted at that ungodly hour, and decided on a yogurt each and a few sips of coffee. Neither of us wanted to be over-caffeinated in case we wanted to sleep on the plane, but we knew we wanted to make it to the airport without dozing off. Everything basically went according to plan as we got ready, packed our last minute items, and headed out the door.

It was always eerily quiet in our building on the few occasions when we were out and about early in the morning.

Choosing the cheap way of getting from our Upper West Side apartment to JFK was relatively easy, but it was a LONG process and was never exactly fun. First, we had to walk to the subway in the still-complete darkness. In all the time I lived in New York, I rarely ever felt vulnerable walking the streets, but the exception to that rule was whenever I had to take the subway to catch an early flight. No matter how safe our neighborhood was, I never liked walking in the early morning darkness carrying a suitcase that obviously has at least a few valuable items in it when there’s practically no one on the streets. Luckily, as always, it went off without incident—no muggings—and we made it to our local subway station.

The train came relatively quickly considering the hour, and we took the C train from our 96th Street stop to the 7th Ave stop where we had to transfer to the E train. While waiting for the E, it was clear that we were among only a few people going OUT at this hour. Most of the other people waiting for the train were on their way home from the previous night’s partying. This at least gave us several amusing drunk people to laugh at while we waited. The E never comes quickly, so we were waiting for quite a while. Once on the E, we lucked out in that it was running express to Jamaica, so while we were stuck on the train for a while, at least it didn’t have that many stops to make. I started feeling pretty bad on the train—good omen, right?—and had to close my eyes and suffer through, but eventually we arrived at Jamaica Station. We were almost to the airport! We waited another few minutes for the AirTrain, then finished the journey to our terminal. The whole experience took about an hour and a half (pretty standard for a trip to JFK).

Once at JFK, we bought some donuts at Dunkin’ Donuts, but put them away in our bags to enjoy after security. This was our first experience with the new-fangled body scanners, and since I forgot to take off my belt, I got the pleasure of a groping inspection before being cleared… Tracy, unfortunately, got pulled aside when they thought they saw liquids in her suitcase. It turned out that our tube of toothpaste was considered enough of a “gel” to get confiscated, so we gave it up and reconciled ourselves with the fact that we’d have to stop for a replacement somewhere in the L.A. area.

After all that excitement, we made our way to our gate.

I was feeling a bit better and we were feeling really excited despite the long flight ahead of us.

We ate our donuts, which we were certainly ready for by this time.

I think I got a Boston Cream donut while Tracy got Strawberry icing with sprinkles. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture. I can guarantee they were tasty though.

Our flight was on time, and before too long it was almost time to board!

Our plane pulled up to the gate, and we stood up as we waited for our row number to be called.

I was definitely more than a little scared how the flight would go. I mostly just didn’t want to have dizziness overtake me for the whole flight while I was trapped in that small space. Luckily, however, I was feeling pretty good after my donut, and was hoping for the best!

All my fears ended up being for naught as once we took off, I felt better than I had on the ground. We were able to enjoy the view.

Let it be said that the flight from New York to California is LONG!!! Apart from the one international flight I’ve ever taken (Denver to London en route to Paris), this is the longest I’ve ever spent on a plane. The flight ended up being divided into about three parts for us. Luckily, both Tracy and I were able to sleep for about the first hour and a half after takeoff. After waking up, we were thinking about starting a movie on our iPad, but first decided to flip through the TV channels to see if there was anything worth watching.

We hit the jackpot when we stumbled across the movie Private Valentine: Blonde and Dangerous starting on TBS. If you’ve read my other trip report, you know that Tracy and I were fans of the reality show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica when it was on many years ago. Mostly we just liked laughing at Jessica Simpson. Well, if you’ve never seen Private Valentine, let it be said that it is an absolutely terrible movie. But it’s just terrible enough to have that same laughable quality which makes it very watchable. Starring such film icons as Steve Guttenberg, Olesya Rulin, Cheri Oteri, and, of course, Jessica Simpson, it’s a light movie with plenty of eye-rolling laughs, and it was the perfect film to take up the next two hours of our flight. Once the credits rolled at the end of the movie, we were already over Colorado.

We waved down as we flew over our home. Now, unfortunately, was when the longest-feeling portion of the flight began. We were so close, and yet still about an hour and a half away…

Trying to find some distractions on TV, we waited it out as the last thousand miles or so of the flight finally passed by. Suddenly, we were beginning our initial descent.

After a relatively quick and painless landing, we touched down at LAX!

Deplaning as quickly as possible, we were thrilled to stretch our legs after sitting for so long. Now all we had to do was find our way out of the airport and we would be on our way!

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