Who needs sleep? (We do)

Tuesday, June 26 (Day 1) — Our flight is three hours fifty minutes. My battery power is good for about three hours. My patience for this particular activity — typing out the start of this year's travelogue on the iBook while sandwiched in coach class behind another passenger who has reclined in full and in between Ben on my left and Roni on my right — is good for perhaps twenty minutes. I should be sleeping, but I can't. We'll see how this goes.

We're about 37,000 feet over Wyoming at the moment, having departed Salt Lake City, Utah, about 20 minutes ago. The clock on the computer says it's 10:14 a.m., which really means it's 11:14 based on the Mountain time zone. Or it is 1:15 p.m. based on the time of our destination: Philadelphia, Pennsylavania. That is our goal, as it has been since we bought our round-trip airline tickets through AAA back in February. We decided that it had been nearly three years since our last airline flight and it was high time for another. Or as I sit here now, squished behind the keyboard , perhaps it was just long enough to have forgotten how truly horrible economy commercial air travel can be. Not that I can fault Delta Airlines for trying. After all, they only emerged from bankruptcy a couple of months ago and are doing everything in their power to make sure our flight is a pleasant one. But there is only so much you can do with the basic commodity, which is designed to cram as many people into as little space as possible.

Perhaps I should back up a bit to how our day began, or rather how yesterday never really ended. When we booked our tickets during the winter, we knew only that we wanted to fly out of Sacramento. Our experience on the Texas trip was very positive, so we thought it would be pleasant to avoid the crowds and traffic and higher costs of Oakland or San Francisco a second time. We picked a flight that was scheduled to depart at 6:35 in the morning. But then Delta upgraded our plane from a Boeing 738 to a Boeing 757 and bumped our flight time up to 6:10 a.m. What difference does 25 minutes make? When it means waking up at 2 in the morning for the drive to the airport, it makes all the difference in the world. We tried to go to bed early last night, but none of us slept well. Roni and I literally didn't fall asleep until about 1:15, and when Ben came in to wake us up at 1:45 (bless his heart) we didn't dare go back to sleep out of fear of missing our 2 a.m. alarm.

But there is something to be said for advance planning. My vacation began Saturday, so we had three days to get all the packing done and suitcases squirreled away in the car beforehand. When it came time to actually leave the house at 3 a.m., we were a few minutes early. Our fear of not waking up on time, in addition to keeping us sleepless much of the night, actually got us out of bed wide-awake promptly at 2 and out the door with ease. It was such an easy departure that we figured we had forgotten something very important. Now nearly eight hours into our trip I still don't know what that something might be, but we'll be sure to figure it out if I know us. We left the garbage can by the curb and sneaked away under cover of darkness.

We rolled up dark and mostly silent Highway 160, toward Sacramento, passing only the occasional car or big rig, entertaining each other with jokes about which musicians and NASCAR personalities we would most like to see as governor after Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves office. That was Ben's idea of how to keep us awake. I expected everyone else to sleep on the drive, but I guess we were all running on adrenaline, and no one trusted me to stay awake if they were sleeping. Probably a wise thing. I'm used to driving at night, but not so early in the morning and not on 30 minutes of sleep. We arrived at Sacramento International Airport shortly after 4 a.m., with about two hours to spare before our flight.

* * * * *

Fast forward a couple of days. Not to spoil the story line, but things have been eventful. I gave up trying to type on the plane because the screen was literally tilted a third of the way shut and my arms were glued to my sides in order to do any typing at all, which was even more hunt-and-peck than my normal hunt-and-peck. Sigh. I didn't intend the long gap in the travelogue, but it has taken me a day-plus to recover from my sleepless first day. Now where was I? Right...

So we got to the airport just fine and parked in the economy lot, which was already darned crowded with the Independence Day holiday coming up. Crowded for Sacramento, that is. I think a lot of flyers still don't know about Sacramento, so we'll keep it our little secret. Our car is located in 40L, which I tell you not for your edification, but for ours in the event we forget by the time we get home. We waited for the airport shuttle to take us to the terminal, the sun still an hour or so away from making its reappearance. We waited with a young couple and their infant for about 15 minutes. When the shuttle arrived, the seats were close to full and ours was one of the first stops. The driver said he had no room for the couple's stroller, so over their protests he made them stay behind and accommodated the three of us. Not that we are traveling light. We had four medium to large pieces of checked baggage, and each brought an item or two for carry-on. We pack creatively, meaning we cram the camera bags inside the other carry-ons so they count only as one item. They're pretty big items, even so.

I'd printed our boarding passes via the Internet Monday afternoon, so all we had to do was check our bags at the Delta curbside check-in and proceed up the stairs to the security screening area. We'd always heard Tuesday was a better day to fly because there are fewer crowds. Guess that doesn't apply during the summer. The screening line was long, but we didn't have any problems. We made our way to gate D3 where we waited to board our flight, passing up the Burger King where we'd eaten breakfast before in favor of a plan to hunt down a real breakfast once we landed in Salt Lake City. It was barely 5 a.m., and most of us don't eat until after 10. Roni had packed some snacks in my carry-on — lunchbox stuff such as Cheez-its, Keebler cookies and barbecue potato chips. We weren't going to starve.

The sun was just beginning to rise when they called us to our seats aboard Delta Flight 1148. We were seated in Row 40A-C, numbers I had chosen because they are far enough behind the left wing that one gets a decent view of the ground while in flight. Ben took the window seat, I the center, and Roni sat on the aisle. A few safety instructions from the flight crew and we were on our way for our first stop.

We flew over Lake Tahoe, where a wildfire that broke out Sunday and had thus far charred a couple thousand acres was sending out waves of smoke along the Sierra Nevada. The fire was about 5 percent contained at last report, and we could see the orange glow beneath the billowing clouds. Cruising at 525 mph and about 39,000 feet, it wasn't long before we'd dusted off Nevada and were starting our descent over the Great Salt Lake. Ben couldn't fathom the idea of a salty lake. I told him such a thing existed, but he probably wouldn't want to drink it.

We'd barely had a chance to finish our in-flight snack of peanuts and juice when we landed right on time, around 8:40 a.m. As long as our luggage got onto the next plane okay, we were making good time. We all made a pit stop in the restrooms then grabbed what we thought would be our real breakfast from one of the airport concessions — bagels for us and a scone for Ben. It was on a par with airline food, perhaps the worst raisin bagel I've ever had. No problem, because surely Delta would feed us something more than peanuts on the second leg of our trip, which was three hours fifty minutes of hangtime to Philly.

Our layover was brief, and they quickly boarded us for flight 1776 out of Gate D12. This time we occupied seats 43A-C. Not my choice. When Delta screwed with the planes and departure times, they also took the liberty of moving our seats. I'd hoped to keep Row 40 for the entire round trip, but 43 was the closest thing available for this flight, so it became the oddball in our bid for a four-of-a-kind hand. The plane was uncomfortably warm when we boarded. The air barely worked at first, and when it finally came on it sucked up a good dose of diesel fumes from work equipment outside on the tarmac. By now the heat, fumes, cramped quarters, lack of sleep and bad food were beginning to get to me. I wanted to take a nap badly, but there was no way to get comfortable. I was dehydrated. Every time I lay back in the seat I felt like I was choking on my own dry throat. To make matters worse, Ben was seated on the window playing his Nintendo DS and taking up both armrests. He kept digging his elbow into my left arm, so I was constantly readjusting my position to avoid the painful jabs. Then the passenger in front of me decided that he wanted to recline his seat, so that got me into the tight quarters I wrote about earlier. Realizing that sleep wouldn't be happening right away, I opted to open up the laptop to write this entry and keep myself awake. It almost worked.

Eventually I gave up trying to fight the opposing forces around me and shut down the computer to attend to my other need: food. Delta, in all its wisdom, decided that flights less than a certain length don't need full meal service. I guess ours fell just below the threshold, because instead of a lunch menu we were given small plastic trays with snack crackers and cheese spread, a box of raisins and a couple of Oreo cookies, packaged in a wrapper that said simply, "Enjoy." My stomach was definitely not enjoying the steady diet of empty calories. I was craving an apple, a banana or any other kind of fresh fruit. Not dried raisins! FRESH fruit. I'd have settled for a rancid slice of orange, just not another cracker package.

Ben pointed out the shore of Lake Michigan for me when we flew over, which was enough to get me out of trying to nap. For a while I watched the lake pass, hoping to see Detroit, which the captain said we'd be near. I guess it was to our south and we were seated on the north side. Too bad. The flight attendants scrambled to complete yet another snack run less than thirty minutes before our landing in Philadelphia. Guess they really needed to deplete their inventory of saltines and biscot cookies before the plane reached ground. (Note to self: Remember to purchase food in advance to take on return flight.)

We descended through a haze that reminded me of every other plane ride I'd ever taken to Philadelphia. This time of year the humidity is just cranking up, the afternoon thunderstorms getting ready to do their thing. When we landed I felt as though we had just reached a foreign country. Suddenly the months of planning and talking about our fantasy vacation seemed real. Three thousand miles away from home and starting two full weeks to explore it. It was a mixture of excitement and dread. Would it live up to the expectations? Would everything go smoothly? I'd been having this terrible sense of foreboding, like something awful might happen. Was it misplaced fear on my part, remembering all the things this area had experienced on 9/11 and ever since? I dearly hoped not. I wanted this to be a memorable vacation for only the right reasons. I wanted Roni and Ben to enjoy some of the places I'd visited nearly 30 years ago, and to experience some new sights when we tour New England the first part of our trip. I took a deep breath and said, "We're here."

We'd landed close to 4:35 p.m. local time. I couldn't have been more pleased. Not only had our flight been perfect, technically, but now we had a couple hours of daylight left in which to get to our hotel and find some real food. Hooray! But not so fast. First we had to rescue our bags from the airport equivalent of luggage roulette. What should have taken perhaps 10 minutes took more than 40 minutes as we all waited for the conveyor belt to cough up our stuff. Not sure what the holdup was. Two of our bags were waiting on the loop when we got to the baggage claim area. But the other two showed up much later, leaving us to briefly wonder if they had vanished in Salt Lake, or worse, been confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration. Ben wrestled with the other passengers to grab the bags right as they came off the chute. I think he was more eager than any of us to get out of the airport.

We were a bit annoyed with the slowness of the baggage claim process, but now that we had our stuff it was a simple matter of collecting the rental car we'd reserved from Budget and we'd be on our way. Wrong.

The courtesy shuttle dropped us at the Budget lot where we were greeted by a humongous line. Not what we'd hoped for. At least we had our reservation confirmation for a Chrysler Sebring. I waited on the curb in the sweltering heat with Ben and our luggage while Roni got in line. During our wait there were signs that something was amiss. Like the fact that a lot of cars were being dropped off, but none were being driven off the lot. Some people were grumbling that they had been waiting for an hour, others that they hadn't received the car they'd reserved. Hmmm. The Budget shuttles are all numbered. Our bus was No. 12. It came and went again — about 30 minutes — before Roni came out with her receipt and said that our name would be called when the car was delivered up front. Fine. So we waited a bit more in the humidity. I was sick with hunger and fatigue, and now I was beginning to sunburn. Where was our car?

By and by we all heard a loud thunk and looked up to see a Budget employee had smashed the rearview mirror off a white Toyota Camry while taking it up front for a customer. We joked and said, "Bet that's our car!" But it wasn't. Several other customers got tired of waiting before we did, so Roni eventually went back into the building to wait it out with them some more. Our courtesy shuttle came and went a third time and still nothing. Some young guys were on their cell phone with friends cruising the other car rental lots and looking for anything that would get them a car without any further wait. I don't get mad easily or often, but I was rapidly reaching that stage as the delay dragged on. Finally, after more than two hours, they pointed us to a blue Ford Taurus with Georgia plates. Hmmmm. It had just been washed, which only annoyed me more because that took extra time for them to do that. I would have accepted a '73 VW bug with bald tires if it got me out the door before now. The Taurus wasn't the Sebring we'd reserved. Roni said they upgraded us for no extra charge because of the delay. The Ford has more trunk room and could easily accommodate all our luggage, which is a good thing even if it does only get 24 mpg on the highway. I figured out enough of the unfamiliar controls to get it out of the rental lot and onto the mean streets of the City of Brotherly Love. (Note to self No. 2: NEVER rent from Budget again.)

The rental car fiasco had me so furious I could barely drive straight. Okay, maybe it had nothing to do with the incident and more to do with fatigue. We'd been on the go for more than 14 hours with little food and sleep and I was ready to drop. Fortunately, Roni had booked a room at the Red Roof Inn that was less than three miles from the airport. All we needed to do was follow her directions from Mapquest and we'd soon be snoozing in our beds. But by now we were losing the day. We thought we followed the directions, but wound up heading into a seedy part of Philly and getting lost in a series of one-way streets. I kept missing turns and we wound up back where we started at the Budget lot not once, but three times. We'd seen the sports stadiums of the Phillies and 76ers before figuring out we were somehow headed north instead of south.

Then we wound up going south and getting lost, too. We found some hotels, but not ours. We stopped for dinner at a Ruby Tuesday's and ordered their salad bar — hunger problem taken care of at last — then asked our server for directions. She knew exactly where the Red Roof Inn was, could see it from the freeway every day on her way to work. We followed her helpful advice to no avail. Still lost, we called the hotel and asked for directions. They described an area off I-95 we hadn't seen. In the dark, we roamed the streets once more until we wound up back at the airport and passed the Budget lot yet again. I was about ready to scream. Then we got smart and actually drove ON I-95 to the proper exit and amazingly found the place after nearly two hours and 25 miles (or about a quarter tank of gas) of futility. We are staying tonight in Room 238, overlooking beautiful I-95.

So it took us about four hours to fly from Salt Lake City to Philadelphia, but longer than that to go from the airport gate to our hotel. We were all out quickly. Too fatigued to even attempt this entry, I put it off to Wednesday night. Now that it's done I'll try to get caught up and do a better job at describing the events of subsequent days.