Originally, my plans were to fly straight to San Francisco after work on Thursday. However, after a slow week of work, coupled with a sudden influx of victories from the Astros, lead to a last minute change in my itinerary. My new plans entailed a pre-dawn departure to San Diego, in order to catch the 12:35 p.m. PDT Astros-Padres start, then on to San Francisco after the game to meet up with my parents. Since I was now flying Continental out of Austin, I had to hop over to IAH to change planes.
I always enjoy early morning flights out of Austin because this is the one time of day that Bergstrom’s gates are at capacity. American and Continental have super-hubs in Dallas and Houston respectively and have a lot of flights scheduled for the morning commute. The high volume of flights between 5:30 a.m.-8:00 a.m. results in more aircraft parked overnight than gate space available so there are always aircraft parked in random places on the tarmac. Leaving AUS, we taxied all the way around the terminal to line up for a departure on 17L. As we made our way to the end of the runway, the captain pulled over to one of the holding spots short of the runway and informed us ATC had placed a 15-20 minute delay on our flight. As you can expect, there were passengers on the flight who were not happy at all and wanted an explanation for why we weren’t taking off. Luckily for those passengers (mainly one lady) sitting in vicinity of me, I successfully translated pilot lingo into Basic English. The conversation went something like this: “Well Ma’am, we can’t take off till those guys up that tower say we can and they obviously want us to wait for the flight pattern to clear. Safety is their number one concern, I’m sure we’ll make it to Houston sometime this morning”. Twenty-one minutes later, we took off on runway 17L and immediately banked left for IAH. The flight was very short and the next thing I knew we were circling over Lake Houston preparing for a landing on 26L. Following a smooth landing and quick taxi to gate C-26, I disembarked and headed to the Presidents Club to meet up with David.
After a much needed breakfast in the Presidents Club, I made my way over to gate C-20 for the 10:20 a.m. departure to SAN. Like the other 99 percent of the time that I fly, I headed straight for my window seat; 20A was the seat of choice for this flight. As we taxied for our takeoff on runway 15R, I realized that my pure excitement for flying had successfully suppressed the lack of sleep from the night before and the early 5:30 a.m. wake up call from Sara. My extended weekend trip that would include two Astros games in two different cities, along with my first trip to wine country, was about to begin.
Juarez, Mexico
Yuma, AZ
My window seat on the B737-800 had an unobstructed view of the landscape below. Our route took us right over Austin, Texas; El Paso, Texas; Tucson, AZ; Yuma, AZ; and over The Peninsular Ranges before our decent into San Diego, CA. I had never flown into San Diego before, but I had remembered from my previous visit to San Diego that the flight pattern usually brought aircraft in right over downtown. That was indeed the case for my flight as well. For aviation enthusiasts, landing on runway 27 at San Diego International has to be ranked as one of the most picturesque landings in the country.
Upon arrival in San Diego, I needed to do something with my bag while I ventured around the city for the next 9 hours. So I hopped into a cab and headed downtown to the Manchester Grand Hyatt. My plan was to convince the bellhop that I had checked out and I needed a place to store my luggage while I went to the baseball game before my flight left. Well, I didn’t even have a chance to put that plan into action because as soon as I got out of the cab I was bombarded by two bellhops — “checking-in Sir?” As calm as that feeling you get when you first listen to Bob Marley, I responded — “actually, I’m headed to the baseball game right now, is there a place to store my bag while I’m gone?” Without hesitation, the bellhop took my bag and stored it away. The toughest obstacle of the day had been executed. I could now enjoy the perfect weather and venture around San Diego without the hassle of dragging my bag along with me…Only one problem, I forgot to get my camera out of my bag so I didn’t take any pictures at the Astros game. O well, the Astros won 7-2 in one of the oddest games I’ve ever been to. There was a 52-minute delay because bees had taken over left field which caused the centerfielder and leftfielder to run for the dugout. At first it was quite comical, but after about 20-minutes of no activity from the Padres grounds crew in trying to contain/kill the bees, the stands emptied. After the game resumed, there were approximately 100 Astros fans and 95 Padres fans left for the ninth inning. It made for one of the oddest (but coolest) setting for a professional game I have ever been in. You could literally hear everything the players, coaches, and umpires were saying on the field. After the Astros recorded the final out, I was ready to stand up and sing the “Eyes of Texas”, but then I realized I was at a professional game, not a college game.
I made my way back to the hotel to get my bags and walked around to take a few pictures before heading back to the airport for my final leg up to San Francisco.
Top Gun Bar
Waking up at 5:30 a.m. CDT is hard enough as it is, but adding a trip to the west coast really takes a toll on your sleep schedule. I finally arrived at San Francisco International at 10:15 p.m. PDT, but I still had a 30-minute BART ride into the city. My twenty-one hour day didn’t conclude until after midnight San Francisco time, but it was worth it!
Part II still to come...
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