Thursday, April 18th I flew from home to Phoenix. April’s weather had been very disappointing, mostly rainy or cold or both. The AZ forecast looked great for early morning runs and outdoor swims.
Because I had an early morning flight (to Chicago) I only managed 30 minutes on the bike in the basement so I walked the airport for 30 minutes after clearing security.
This photo made me consider that although air travel is faster now than in 1939, it really hasn’t improved in my lifetime. Flying from one city to another in the US takes just as long as when I was 10 years old (a half-century ago). The only exception is the brief and limited Concorde experience. And of course, NO ONE can deny that the experience of flying has become markedly worse over the last several decades. First the security overreaction to Sept. 11th and then the ridiculous penny-pinching fees followed by the Covid downstaffing leaving the airlines short-staffed and now with not enough planes due to the repeated Boeing issues. All four of my American flights were “full” with the ground staff “asking” for people to check their carry-ons. No one wants to check a bag anymore because of the high fees and the common loss of luggage. I mostly fly JetBlue where my Mosaic status gets me on the plane in the first group, for American I end up in group 5 of 9 with my “credit card” status. Waiting in the incredibly slow line in the jetways made me nostalgic for the old days when they efficiently boarded planes from the back rows first. My flight from Buffalo was the only one on time, so 3/4 were late (it ranged from 15 minutes to an hour).
I had a longish layover (over 2 hours) so was in no rush but it was nice how the AA app showed a little map to the next flight. After finding my gate I did another 30-minute walk.
My flight to Phoenix was only delayed 30 minutes but they didn’t announce the delay until they had already done the “pre-boarding” announcements, annoying.
I think this is the first time I have visited AZ after the clocks moved forward in the rest of the country so there was a 3-hour time difference from EST. So even with an indirect flight and delays I still was on the ground in AZ by 2 pm. I got some nice photos and with the AA wifi connected, GoogleMaps worked on my phone.
After collecting my luggage (I had too much sports equipment to use just a carry-on) it was a bit of a walk to get to the cool monorail that went to the car rental center. Each car had only a few seats at each end though so not very convenient for the elderly or disabled. It was a much faster trip than the buses used to take. My car was actually in the spot that the app told me to go to. A very nice big SUV (I had ordered/paid for a “midsize” vehicle), I was amazed though to see that it had 82,000 miles on the odometer. Before Covid, I don’t think I ever had a rental car with more than 10 or 20 thousand miles.
With no traffic, it was a smooth 20-minute drive to my hotel in Scottsdale/Paradise Valley. I had a nice view of Camelback Mountain when I was heading north.
I had picked this hotel mainly for its location between Old Town Scottsdale and northern Scottsdale where my cousin lived. It had very nice calm gardens, 2 large pools, and a perfect view of the back of Camelback (except for the church in the way!).
I was all checked in and settled in my room by 4 pm and although it had been a long day I was motivated and went down to the pool for a 30-minute swim. Both pools were geometrically interesting, I found 2 walls that were about 25 yards apart and did laps, there were a few other people in the pool but most of the tourists seemed to have headed off for dinner.
Dinner was some delicious ramen and sushi via GrubHub and then I napped for an hour before it was time to head back to the airport to collect Alex who had flown direct from NYC on Jetblue.
The airport had 3 different cell phone lots so I picked the one that would allow me to pick up Alex most efficiently. I was VERY impressed as the large lot had its own Flight Status board! As they had not checked a bag, Alex was in the hotel room barely 30 minutes after the plane touched down.
I was very ready to sleep at 11 pm but then woke up at 3 am, it took almost an hour but I did manage to get back to sleep again, until I was up again at 5.