Travel Weary
February 13, 2009
Whew, what a couple of weeks. Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I have been on travel for my company and what a couple of weeks it was.
The journeys started with a business trip to Hawaii a couple of weekends ago. Yeah, I know, rough place to go on business. It is a long trip to get there, but I have been to worse places. 
Suzanne decided to tag along on this trip. We actually flew out separately last Monday. Our airline tickets didn’t match up because I was on company travel and she took the cheapest flight. Her flight actually got her into Honolulu about 6 hours before more. Suzanne’s parents came to our house to watch the kids so she could go on the trip – awful nice of them!
Since her flight got in early, Suzanne jumped on a local bus and rode it around the island checking out some of the sights. I had meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday so Suzanne had time to herself. She did some shopping, walking on the beach and went snorkeling. I think she had some fun.
We decided to stay a couple of extra days, Thursday and Friday. Thursday, we walked around Waikiki and attended a luau at night. The luau got off to a slow start, but the entertainment was very enjoyable though perhaps a bit short. The food was quite good. On Friday, we just lounged around the beach and pool relaxing.
On Saturday, we returned home, again on different flights. Instead of heading home, I actually headed to Washington DC as I needed to be there Monday AM for a meeting. Going from Honolulu to DC is quite an experience, one I am not sure I would wish on anyone.
It was about a six hour flight to LAX and was uneventful. However, the 6 hour layover in LAX before continuing on to NY was agonizing. My flight arrived into JFK in NY at 5:30 am on Sunday. Toss in another 3 hour layover and I was more tired of layovers than flying. I finally arrived into DC at about 10:00 am on Sunday. Happily, all flights were uneventful.
The rest of Sunday turned out to be fun. I hooked up with my good friend Paul who lives near DC in the afternoon for dinner. We also drove around DC a bit and took in a few sights. We even happened to be driving past the White House just as Obama was landing in Marine One from a weekend at Camp David. We also stopped and got out at two memorials I hadn’t yet seen in DC, the Air Force Memorial and the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. Both were very nice. I finally turned in for the night very exhausted about 10:30 pm.
We conducted our business on Monday in DC and flew out of DC mid-afternoon for Dayton, Ohio arriving in time for late dinner.
Our business in Dayton was completed in the morning, but we unfortunately couldn’t fly out until the evening. So we took the opportunity to visit the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton. It is worth a visit if you are in the area and never seen before.
We flew out around 7 PM (an hour late) and got into Dallas, TX just as a big series of storms rolled through the area. We had a two hour layover Dallas that turned into a three hour layover due to the weather. We finally landed in Tucson about 1:45 AM on Wednesday morning.
I manage to grab a few hours sleep before heading into work. Luckily, I had Thursday and Friday off this week!
Looks like about a week or so before I head out to DC once again…
Travel and More Travel
January 24, 2009
Sorry for the absence, but the new job (within same company) has a bit more travel required. I just recently returned from a trip to Alabama and have another pending trip to Hawaii – yeah, that’s a rough one. Suzanne will be tagging along on that trip. Her parents are going to drive in from Texas and stay with the kids so that she can go. Being retired sure must be nice!
I also have pending trips to Kansas, Florida and Washington DC. Thank goodness that inauguration mess is over. DC is busy and frantic enough with out all that going on. There is also talk of possibly a few more trips too here in the first quarter.
I have been lucky and really not had to travel a whole lot in my career. I had one stretch of about 4 years where I had some international stuff going on and had to go to Germany and Italy. That was a couple 2 or 3 trips a year, so not too bad. Plus, our company policy allows business class travel overseas, so I guess you could say it was better than not too bad.
These short haul domestic trips are another story. Air Travel has gotten anything but friendly. Perks and service have been reduced. Basic costs and add on costs (baggage, etc) have gone up. Of course, being business travel, I don’t have to pay. These days planes are more and more full on each leg too. And the planes are smaller and smaller with regional jets covering more of the routes.
On another note, its only Saturday and I am already going into withdrawals knowing that there isn’t an NFL football game on this Sunday. What is a guy to do??
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