Air Travel

And, after much delay, I am finally back in California. Man, does it feel good to breath in the smog once again.

Here's the thing, though, in order to get back to my beloved City of Angels, I had to fly with my family. It's not that I've never flown with members of my family, but the last time I wasn't on a plane by myself, 8-year-old Marty was 1-year-old Marty.

We flew out of Chicago. If you're a frequent flyer, you can probably already predict where this is going.

It was out of Midway, which I've never actually been to before. Since I had much less of a grasp on how to get there, as opposed to O'Hare, we left pretty early...and we got there really early. Even earlier than the FAA recommends. So, we decided to get some breakfast.

Our flight was supposed to leave Chicago around 11:30 CST, and get into LA around 5 p.m.

When we left the restaurant, the first thing that we noticed was the dark sky and the flashes of lightning in the distance. Amy checked her iPhone and our flight was still on time. By the time we got to the airport 10 minutes later that was no longer the case.

Being stuck in an airport with a flight delay sucks no matter what. Doing it with a pair of boys under 10 does not help the situation. Young boys inclination is not to just sit quietly. It goes against nature to try to make them.

Even more fun, they kept delaying our flight...which is enjoyable if you're supposed to have a layover and connecting flight someplace else, in our case Las Vegas.

By the time we actually had a firm departure time, it was supposed to put us in to Vegas at pretty much the same time that our second flight was going to leave. We asked the flight attendant about it, but she was non-committal. Our flight could get in earlier, the other flight could be delayed, etc.

Because there are four of us, I ended up sitting in front of the others on the initial takeoff. I couldn't watch Casey, who had the window seat, on his first plane ride or Marty on the first one that he could really pay attention on...but I could hear them. Casey was playing with the window shade, annoying Marty, and Marty was complaining about having to put his iPod away (which, at least, he's a kid and doing...plenty of the adult passengers still complain about that, even after that "Mythbusters" episode where they showed that it actually can affect the planes controls).

At some point, we traded seats so that Amy could sleep -- I've never slept on a plane in my life, and that includes red-eyes -- and I could corral the boys. I must admit that it was kind of fun to be able to point things out to them as we were going into the descent to Las Vegas. Being state afficianados, they were excited to get to say that they had now been in Nevada.

The flight attendant turned out to be right on one count...our plane did get in early. Unfortunately, that meant that they didn't have the gate ready. So, we sat on the tarmac looking at the hotels on the south Strip while our connecting flight took off to LAX.

They actually made an announcement to tell us what flight we were being put on while we sat there. Amy looked it up...it didn't leave for 2 1/2 hours.

I said that delays always suck, but really Vegas is kind of exempted from that. I mean, you can gamble in every terminal. If you're going to be stuck someplace, Vegas is a good choice. That is, if you don't have kids. If you have kids, then you get to look at the slot machines so tantilizingly close, but yet so far away. And, because you have kids, you can't drink either.

At one point, I did let Amy go try to gamble, but it was still a hollow slice of Sin City.

Our new flight was now going to put us in at 8:30 PST...or 11:30 p.m. by our body clocks. The good thing though is that Vegas to L.A. is just a hop, skip and a jump...a fact that I used to take advantage of a few times a year when I lived here.

The second flight went off without issue, but once we got in there was the little issue of getting the rental car. I left Amy and the kids at baggage claim while I took the van over to the lot. Only, the van for my rental car agency wasn't exactly quick. People came and went, and yet, I still sat there.

Finally, it came and I hoped on with Amy's iPhone in hand, ready to take pictures of the car before I left the lot. As I got on, I tried to look at something on the iPhone...which was locked. Turns out that I don't know the passcode for her phone. That also meant that I couldn't call her on my phone once I got the car.

I spent the ride to the lot frantically trying combinations that I thought would work...until I basically double-locked the phone. It told me I could try again in 15 minutes.

Once I was through the counter, I still couldn't use the phone. But, as I walked to the car, the phone suddenly rang. I didn't think that I could answer, but luckily I was wrong. It was my sons' godmother calling to say that they had had an emergency situation come up and wouldn't see us until tomorrow. I was stuck in the uncomfortable situation of saying, "I'm sorry to hear that...say, could you call Amy on my cell phone and ask her to call me."

Not one of my finer moments, but 5 minutes later Amy called to tell me how to unlock her phone.

The worst part was that thanks to the delay, we had eaten at the Vegas airport. So, I wasn't hungry as I drove past an In-N-Out. I had planned for months to go directly to that In-N-Out at that very minute, and yet, here I was driving right on past. But, I wasn't going to force my first Double-Double in years.

The kids tried to stay awake to watch the bright lights, but didn't quite have it left in them. They sat in the backseat quietly dazed.

We're staying just outside of Burbank in North Hollywood, with the Bob Hope Airport in between. Why didn't we just fly into Burbank, you ask? There's a couple of hundred reasons why and they have a $ in front of them. When I was single, I would pay the extra to just fly into Burbank since I lived nearby, but with four tickets, I don't care what gas prices are, it still comes out to a whole lot more.

The kids have crashed and so has the wife, but I'm back in my element.