Mundane Travel Log

So in San Francisco there is this phenomenon of low lying clouds that makes for picturesque photographs of buildings along the bay, but makes for inconvenient travel.

Apparently SFO (San Francisco International Airport) lands incoming aviatory traffic along two parallel runways. But when those otherwise gorgeous clouds line the atmosphere, SFO commonly decides to reduce traffic to a single runway. How this can be maintained in the order of normal business I do not claim to know. I do, however, know first hand of the resulting delay. What would have been a short jaunt across the continental US turned into a collection of delays at SFO that doubled the actual travel time and turned the expected arrival time of 1:21pm at the convenient Ontario International Airport into a major excursion with an arrival into LAX, the gateway to the Far East, at 11:00pm (and is currently being adjust for delays as I write this)!

This excursion included a connecting flight in the obscure town of Bakersfield, California. I don't know the population, but it is large enough to have a single terminal, 6 gate airport.

But small airports are not without their advantages as everything is in really close proximity to one another. The little deli sports non-dairy smoothies that would belittle larger cities. With the man behind the counter pumping out the ethnic East Indian music peculiar to that region, the deli seems more like a hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop's joint that you might see in rural New England.

A quick run downstairs places you square in the middle of gate 6, and a saunter across the main hall the size of many larger airport's breezeway is a dignified lounge with comfy cloth seats and wooden computer desks. At this hour there is only one other traveler, and there is even the free wireless network, a convenience coveted by those travelers accustomed to larger venues.

All in all a surprise oasis out in the middle of inland California, a region that usually sports dry arid cropland and not much else.

And small airports mean smaller crowds and personal attendance by the airport staff. If that doesn't make you feel like a million bucks, you probably make more than a million bucks.

Oops, did they just announce another flight delay into LA? Sigh, the conveniences of modern travel... Already I miss where I left and I haven't even arrived at where I'm going.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry