Through all this election hoopla I completely forgot to detail my trip to the swinging state of Ohio. Friday after work I rushed home and then rushed to the gym to get a quick workout. I thought if I worked out, it would help me sleep on the plane. Bad idea. It took me an hour and a half to drive 20 miles on the 405 freeway. When I got to the airport I couldn’t find Parking Lot B (the cheapest one). Turns out I needed to go farther south of where I was, and I had been looking for it by going back and forth east and west. So I finally found it, took the tram, and made my way through check in and security with maybe a half hour to spare before boarding the plane. It was dark when the plane took off. We flew up and out over the ocean before doing a U turn and heading northeast. The lights of L.A. looked spectacular. From my window seat in the very last row of the plane I could look all the way up the coast to Malibu and beyond. When we started flying over the land though I couldn’t recognize anything, try as I might. The in-flight movie was Around the World in 180 Days with Jackie Chan. I didn’t have headphones, and I didn’t want them. I tried and tried to sleep, but I could not.

We touched down in Cincinnati around 3 am PST. The airport was deserted at that hour. I tried to sleep on the chairs at the terminal (think the scene with Tom Hanks in Terminal when he screws the chairs together for a bed….except turn on all the lights and CNN at full blast) as I waited for my connecting flight. I hadn’t realized earlier though that the layover would be a full THREE HOURS. So, still not getting any sleep, I boarded a flight to Akron at 6am PST. We only spent 33 minutes in the air, and we were above heavy clouds the whole time. The weather up there was perfect though and the sunrise coming through the clouds made it look like we were flying over icebergs in the pacific in Alaska. I punched myself for forgetting my camera. The whole thing was like a dream also because I’d been up over 23 hours at that point. When we landed and I got off the plane I was supposed to meet my family at the baggage claim. In my zombie-like stupor I circled the security check-point for boarding passengers maybe 3 or 4 times wondering where my family was (and seeing all my fellow passengers being greeted by friends and family) before I realized I was not at baggage claim. When I finally found my family we proceeded to the car, mom’s cramped Mercury Cougar. From there it was another hour’s drive to the hotel. However, once we got the hotel, we couldn’t check in until 9am PST, so we went out to eat. At this point I just felt dead and didn’t really care about hunger or anything (even though it had been almost 15 hours since I last ate). At 10am PST when we reached the hotel again, I laid down on the bed and I was out.

I was woke around 2 (PST) and told that I had missed the wedding. Mom said she woke me up before they left and asked me if I wanted to sleep through it. I was so out of it that I don’t remember that at all. After those few hours of sleep I felt good enough to go to the reception. The reception was very big, very expensive, and very nice. It was at “the Flats” a new trendy spot near downtown Cleveland. However, for some reason, the Long/Rhoades family was outnumbered by the Shriner family (the bride’s) by over 25 to 1. My brother and I were seated not with our family, but with cousins of the bride. All of my relatives (except John – the groom’s immediate family) started feeling increasingly like we were intruding on someone else’s party, and didn’t stay long after the meal was over. After returning to the hotel I got back into bed and slept for about 13 hours. The next morning we ate a big brunch at the “356th Fighter Squadron Restaurant” next to the airport. The food on the breakfast buffet was kind of sub-standard (at least for Los Angeles standards), it reminded me of the weekend brunches in the OSU cafeterias. It had one saving grace though, a fresh made omelet chef who would put whatever you wanted on/in them. I forgot how good a good omelet is…time to buy some eggs. I realized that I regularly purchase all the veggies in the omelet at the Armenian store already anyway and I always have cheese around for Amy’s grilled cheese sandwich fetish, so I should add omelet to my diet and spice things up a bit. The plane out of Akron got delayed and the man sitting next to me (I had been alone on both flights in) was about 6 foot 5. I looked out the window the whole time only to realize that the plane would fly over unpopulated areas of the state. I was still searching for signs of Columbus when the intercom said “and now we’ll begin our initial approach into Cincinnati.” The flight to LAX was about the same. The majority of the time the entire outside view was the inside of a big grey cloud. I did see some ski resorts in the Rockies at one point though. When we started flying over LA proper it was night again. I strained and strained to recognize anything as we got closer and closer to the ground. Then I looked out the other side of the plane and saw downtown and realized that I was looking towards Long Beach and southern LA, an area which I’ve really not been to yet, and has few visual landmarks that can be seen from the air anyway (North LA has the Hollywood hills, downtown, Santa Monica Pier, etc.). Oh well, I’m sure this is hardly my last flight out of LAX.

I was so hungry (the in-flight meal is no longer free) after getting out of the airport (about 8pm) that I stopped at a ghetto Burger King in Inglewood. How was I in Inglewood you may ask… well I missed the 405 entrance and just kept going down Century… When I finally did get to the 405 and connected to the 101…I was so out of it that I went the wrong way and didn’t realize it until I was all the way into Canoga Park.

Mom bought me four new shirts and ties, so thank you mom!

John and Katie went to New Zealand and have a whole day layover in L.A. on the way back next weekend, so I signed up to be their tour guide. Where should I take them?

Tomorrow will be only the 2nd game all season that is broadcast on regular cable tv out here in SC so I can sleep in, stumble out of bed, and watch my buckeyes from the (relative) comfort of my own living room.