(pre-warning: long winded post)

I spent this past weekend in Yosemite for a wedding.  It was my first trip and I’m sure it won’t be my last.  Even though I was only in the park for ~25 hours, I can honestly say I haven’t been to many places as beautiful as Yosemite (don’t worry, Yellowstone, you’re still my fave).

The wedding was great.  It was held at The Awahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.  The weather was perfect.  It was a casual affair with about 50 (+/-) people attending; mostly the bride and groom’s family but a few friends to even things out (then again, who else would they invite?  The Pope?  Complete strangers?).

After the reception a group of us went for a “short walk” (turned into a not-so-short-walk, but was still fun).  We saw the Yosemite Falls and the other camps/villages around the valley.  As expected, I was in uber-tourist mode and took a boat load of pictures.  You can see them on my Flickr page, if you’re so inclined:

Considering the issues I had with actually getting to the park, I think the weekend went well and I really enjoyed the trip.  Now on to the rant section that is becoming fairly typical of my postings.

The trip started on Friday afternoon with my drive to the airport.  Nothing special there.  I was only a couple minutes behind schedule.  The search for a parking spot took longer than expected, which set things back a little more, but still, nothing serious.  I ended up asking someone who had just exited the shuttle bus where he parked, and I followed him to his spot.  That seemed like the only way I was going to find anything considering the 10-minute search I had just conducted.  In the airport, I was pleasantly surprised (and a little confused) to find there was *no* line for security.  Literally, there was no line.  The security checkpoint for IAD was recently moved to a lower level and you have to go through the old security section, down an escalator, and into the new security section.  As soon as I got down there it was obvious that I arrived in the middle of rush hour, but things moved along fairly quick.  They actually had 15 lines open and moving people so the wait wasn’t that bad.  After security and a short trip to my terminal on the people mover and I was ready to go.  They had already started boarding and no one seemed to know which boarding group had been called.  This is where the fun started.

I was in boarding group two and thought I heard that group four had been called. The seating area was basically empty so I figured this was the last of everyone so I just got in line.  At some point I got confused because I couldn’t remember if they boarded groups in sequential order, or from the back to the front, or in some other reverse polish notation.  I got out of line to ask and was promptly told that I should just get back in line; at the end.  The flight was operated by one of United’s infamous “domestic only” 777’s, and it was completely full.  By the time I boarded and got to my palatial Economy Plus seat, there was no overhead stowage, so I had to continue back a few rows to find a bin that was open enough for my roller-board.

On a side note, I still can’t understand why people don’t follow common-courtesy and put their damned small items under the seat in front and leave the overheads for larger items.  Are you *that* stupid?  Seriously.  Most of the bins were occupied by purses and laptop bags.  Add in the fact that 777 bins are more shallow than most other planes, and you get storage issues.  Instead of being able to put the bag in perpendicular to the bin, so more bags can fit side-by-side, you have to put it in parallel to the bin, so essentially only one standard-size roller-board can fit in each overhead bin.  I’m not sure about the rationale behind this design decision.  The 777 debuted in the ’90s and every other Boeing plane (save for the 717, I think), has *much* larger overhead bins.  My bag fits just fine in all the 737, 757, and 767 models, but not the 777.

Once I found a spot I had to shuffle my way against the tide to get to my seat.  One woman got extra cranky and someone told her to just chill out and deal with it.  A special “thank you” goes out to whomever said that.  At this point I’m hot and sweaty since the A/C wasn’t activated and the ground-air was no colder than a cat’s cough.  I got situated in my seat and waited for push-back.  And waited.  And waited.  Departure time was 1715 and it was already 1735.  The pilot’s voice came over the PA and informed us that “due to a minor maintenance issue” we were still waiting to push back.  Apparently, one of the A/C packs had failed.  We all got a lesson in aviation mechanics and safety that day because the pilot went into nauseating detail about how 777 had two A/C packs and that it controlled cabin pressurization as well as cooling, and that we could fly safely with just one, but would have to get more fuel and file a new flight plan because we’d have to fly at a lower altitude.  Normally I would find this fascinating but at this point I didn’t care.  We still had a 5-hour flight ahead of us and we had thus-far may zero progress.

I don’t know what the ultimate solution was, but we finally pushed-back 50 minutes late.  Great.  That’s exactly the length of time of my connection in San Francisco for my flight to Fresno.  I was hoping they’d make an attempt to make up some time in the air so we’d get there with just barely enough time for me to make my connection.  But we didn’t.  We took exactly the prescribed amount of time to get there.  No more, no less.  Maybe I don’t have room to complain, but by their own admission (while we were still sitting on the ground), this flight was full of connecting passengers.  You would think that over a 2700-mile, 5-hour flight, they could goose the throttle another 1% and give us an extra 30 knots of cruising speed.  Roughly estimated, we cruised at an average of 540mph (yes, I know, that’s not exact because of the variation of departure and approach legs, but it’s close enough).  Why couldn’t that have been 555mph?  That would have given us an extra 10 minutes, and I could have made my connection (the flights were only a few gates apart).  I know United is concerned about fuel burn, as is every other carrier, but don’t you think the cost of compensation and manpower needed to reaccommodate a 777-load of people on connecting flights is more than the cost of a little extra fuel burn?  Sure, I don’t know the math, and there are probably 777 pilots out there who are scoffing at my cursory math, but who cares, this is my blog and I get to complain all I want.

As soon as we landed I called United reservations from my seat to get an update on my connecting flight.  It had already departed but, have no fear, I’ve been rolled-over to the next (and last for the day) flight to Fresno, leaving at 2240 and arriving into Fresno at 2340 (scheduled…).  At least I’ll get to Fresno tonight.  Albeit really late, but I’ll get there regardless.  This, however, leads to another problem.  I booked this flight because it arrived into Fresno at 2130 and would still have time to get my rental car.  The Enterprise counter closed at 11pm and any later flight would get me there too late.  I reserved a hotel room on the far north side of town (to make my exit from Fresno the next morning easier) and had intended to pickup my car and drive to the hotel myself.  But, because I was now slated to arrive well after they were closed, I would have to figure out something else.   I called the hotel and inquired about a shuttle. No dice.  They were too far from the airport and didn’t have a shuttle.  I didn’t think they were *that* far from the airport but apparently the map I used was somewhat deceiving because, in reality, the drive was much longer than I anticipated.

Back to the flight.  We boarded the EMB-120 and had to rearrange the plane for weight and balance.  I went from the very last row of the plane to the very first row.  I had to leave my laptop bag at the back because, once again, all the overheads were full and the front row is the bulkhead so there is no under-seat storage.  My knees, quite literally rested against the bulkhead the entire trip.  There was no room to stretch; the flight attendant seat and the flight deck door formed a solid, no-stretch zone.  We taxied out to the runway and sat in what the flight attendant described as “SFO Rush Hour” (at 2245) for about 20 minutes.  We finally took off and landed in Fresno just about 10 minutes late.  Seems they didn’t have any issues making up for lost time in flight…

After waiting for everyone to deplane I retrieved my bag and headed through the terminal to the taxi stand.  Just my luck, there was one waiting.  We loaded my bags took off.  Twenty minutes and $35.00 later we reached my hotel.  The lady who checked me in was very nice and wasted no time getting my keys and noted that I looked none-to-happy; boy was she right.  A quick explanation and a few hearty chuckles later and I was on my way.  Before finally climbing into bed at 0130 I compiled my thoughts from the ether of my aggravation with United onto paper and will be sending them a letter requesting the $84.00 their mechanical delay cost me (two taxis and a dinner on Friday).

The next morning I awoke at 0600 and left for the airport in yet another $35 taxi ride to pickup my rental car.  The pickup experience rendered no event of consequence worth reporting so we’ll fast-forward through the uneventful, yet oddly soothing, drive into the park.  From here we pickup where we left-off above with the wedding.  Wedding, hiking, dinner, campfire, sleep, brunch, and a few pictures later and I’m heading back to Fresno.

I made it home in one piece (sort of… one piece with a few leaks), but not for a lack of trying on the part of Enterprise.  I returned my car and as I was unpacking I realized I forgot to refill the gas tank, so I threw everything back in the car and found the first station I could.  Only $2.759/gallon; cheap for California.  Then I took it back and waited for the attendant to come by.  Five minutes later when I realized I was the only idiot standing around in the parking lot, I walked toward the booth, only to find it was empty.  It did, however, have a helpful note on the window opposite the parking lot (you know, because putting it in an place visible to everyone – or anyone – would make *way* too much sense) asking me to record my fuel level, mileage, and take the contract and keys back inside the terminal.  I walked all the way back to my car, got the mileage, and then walked back into the terminal where there was, you guessed it, ONE person working.  Fortunately there was only one other group ahead of me, but they obviously weren’t in any hurry because it was twenty-questions with them.  Meanwhile, the line behind me started to grow and I think the counter-jockey finally got the idea and hurried things up.  No surprise charges or rate changes (as I expected from before) and was off to the security within just a couple minutes.  I found it funny that the customer service person asked if I remembered my mileage and that, if not, no big deal, the lot attendants (???) would just get it when they went to move the car….  Not reading your own signs I guess.  Oh well.

That’s it.  You should be congratulated and awarded a medal of some kind for making it this far.   I need to stop these long-haul weekend trips.  I spend 2/3 of the time traveling and only 1/3 of the time actually doing what I had intended.  Even through all the cruft and crap of United Airlines, I didn’t let it ruin my trip.  How’s that for positive thinking?