Planes, A Bus, And An Automobile — Wednesday, 8th June 2016
It must be a sign that I have settled into the Socal mindset when I plan flight times around when I need to get to, or from, Los Angeles International Airport. My initial naivety has long been beaten out of me by the 405. You must be dear to me if I volunteer to pick you up from, or take you down to Los Angeles International Airport aka LAX. Granted that you can get down to LAX in under an hour from the Conejo Valley, but that does depend on the time and day. Be it a mere one hour of travel or six, flying out of LAX is a grind.
Instead of dealing with the shared van method of getting to LAX, or driving down and parking near the airport, we went for the other option. We had decided to use the Van Nuys Flyaway. This option provides a little of the ‘fun’ of both of the other two options; We have to drive and park, and then be stuffed in a shared vehicle with lots of other anxious travelers. In fact it went great until our bus drove off the surface streets and onto the 405. Welcome to the car park otherwise known as the 405 Freeway. All of those travel time calculations streamed through my head again. Was there enough buffer time in the schedule to ensure we could get to the terminal, through the security line, and to the gate? This was just to get on the first of the two flight that would get us to Paris.
We crawled to the junction of the 405 and the 101, stopping and starting all the way in agonizingly small hops. What fool would publish a bus timetable where the estimated travel time is only 1 hour at this time of day ? Have they never been on the 405 during the busy hours of 4am to 10pm? My travel methodology is to be an hour early, rather than a second late. It’s not than I don’t like traveling, I just don’t like being rushed. It is not a good start to a trip when the first leg is already going pear shaped. I was not sure if Christieann was feeling as anxious as I was, but she did a good job in reassuring me that we had spare time in the schedule. The minutes past by, and so did the fractions of the many miles in our long journey to the Western Front.
Once we were past the 101 junction an unexpected miracle occurred. The driver of a fellow vehicle actually used his turn indicator before he changed lanes. It must have been a mistake, the control stalk must have been knocked by accident by an impatient driver. Then another miracle occurred, our bus began to move faster. The stopping and the starting subtly changed in duration, less stopping and more moving between the stops. Relentlessly our bus clawed up the Sepulveda Pass, we peaked the crest and lumbered slowly down past the Getty Center. The sight of a large jet aircraft almost hanging in the air, as it slowly descended towards landing, heralded our imminent arrival at our airport.
Processing through LAX, and the first flight, went without incident. We weren’t felt up by TSA agent’s, and we had snack bars a plenty to avoid the over-priced food and long lines.
Before we knew it we were in Texas, at DFW, an airport that I had been through many a time before. The Texas summer sun relentlessly beat down on the jet way as we boarded the flight that would take us to Paris Charles-De-Gaulle Airport. As we made our way along the jet way we paused for a moment, my hand reached out and I pressed my palm flat against the jet way wall. It was scorching hot to the touch. The unceasing heat of the Texas sun seemed familiar, and oddly reassuring. What weather would await us in the more unpredictable north west Europe? Mere days ago relentless storms had caused floods, and deaths, along the River Seine. These same floods had closed Monet’s Garden, it had only just reopened. Would the garden be a picturesque wonder or a muddy swamp ? In less than 12 hours we would find out.
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Tim
6th June 2017
For the next chapter see Nous Sommes Arrivés
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