So I need to relax before my big flight to San Antonio for the upcoming annular solar eclipse. I don’t fly as often as most people, but when I do fly, I do have some great stories – both good and bad.
And if I’m going to remain calm about flying … let’s do this right.
PREVIOUS FLIGHT DESTINATIONS: In no particular order, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Louisville, Chicago (Midway and O’Hare), Seattle, Boise, Helena, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Toronto, Detroit, Quad Cities / Moline, Baltimore.
FIRST FLIGHT: It was 1992. A friend had acquired two tickets to a Pittsburgh Steelers game and invited me. We flew from Albany Airport to Pittsburgh on what was then U.S. Airways (direct flight). He had been a Cleveland Browns fan since the days of Otto Graham, and he was boasting about how the Browns were going to beat the Steelers that day. We sat in the upper deck of Three Rivers Stadium, and the Steelers won handily – I think Barry Foster was the running back at the time, and he set the Browns on fire like it was Lake Erie. I also remember that some rowdy Browns fans were in front of us, jumping up and down and causing a ruckus, and he actually threatened one of the fans to sit down or he would toss them over the railing and onto the gridiron. And I don’t doubt that he would have achieved that goal.
WORST FLIGHT: Definitely 2011, when I had to travel from Hartford to Baltimore to Dallas to get to Oklahoma for a basketball championship – only foul weather and some unruly Southwest staff curtailed my trip. I blogged about it.
MOST NERVOUS FLIGHT: 2003, Albany to Baltimore to Louisville. As a freelance writer for RoadKing magazine at the time, one of my articles was shortlisted for an award at the Truck Writers of North America event at the Mid-America Truck Show. This was my first flight post-9/11, and to say I was nervous was an understatement. Of course, I ended up on Southwest, where the pilot cracked jokes all throughout the trip and I was white-knuckling the arm rests throughout the flight.
MOST UGH EVENT: I believe this was in 2004, my son Kris had just graduated from high school in Washington State and I flew out to attend the graduation. The flight out wasn’t bad. But the flight back – a redeye from Seattle to Newark – was spoiled when the passenger in front of me decided that mid-flight was the best time to change the big load in her son’s diaper. Yep. Trans-continental baby turd smell all the way to Newark Liberty Airport. And don’t give me any jokes about how it probably smelled better in the plane than in Newark Liberty.
SMALLEST DESTINATION AIRPORT: Helena, Montana – I attended the 2007 Continental Basketball Association All-Star Game in Butte, Montana, which mean I needed to go from Albany to Denver to Helena. And then rent a car and drive the rest of the way to Butte.
EMPTIEST PLANE: In 2010, I flew on a “deadhead” flight from Albany to Chicago, along with one other passenger and a scheduled flight crew. And sure enough, the flight crew went through all the pre-flight drills and information tips. I blogged about it back then.
MOST CROWDED PLANE: Definitely one of the legs from Albany to Seattle in 2017 (my last flight until now) to visit my son Kris. There was barely enough room in the seats to change your mind, let alone change your gaze.
NICEST UPGRADE: In 2008, I flew back from the Continental Basketball Association’s All-Star Game in Yakima, Washington – I flew from Seattle into Denver. But in Denver, the connecting flight to Albany was overbooked, and I volunteered to take the next available flight. I was bumped up to first class, and let me tell you – there’s a reason I’m flying first class on this trip. First class is sweet.
BUMPIEST FLIGHT: This was coming back from a trip to Boise in 2006 (again, for the Continental Basketball Association All-Star Game). There was turbulence heading into Albany, and the plane got jostled around more than I’m comfortable with. Yes, I grabbed the blue bag. Yes, I had it open. If that plane had not landed within the next three minutes … well … you know.
FAMOUS PEOPLE MET ON A FLIGHT? Not really, but I do remember one flight – I was at a layover in O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where I encountered someone who was flying home from Los Angeles with her newly-won Emmy Award. Apparently she was a writer for a soap opera, I don’t know which one, but yes that Emmy looks nice in person. No, she wouldn’t let me touch it. You have to earn those awards before you can touch them.
RITUALS BEFORE FLIGHT: If I’m flying out of Albany International, I’ll visit the interfaith center and say a prayer or six. Also, as the plane lifts off, I have been known to whisper the 23rd Psalm more than a few times. Look, it helps me get through things.
MOVIES ON A FLIGHT: I remember seeing one where Reese Witherspoon was a ghost that was trying to haunt her old boyfriend or something. Yeah, it wasn’t that memorable. Most times I recall watching some three-year-old episode of The Big Bang Theory or listening to the flight chatter on one of the headphone channels. Oh yeah, and eating the peanuts. Gotta have the peanuts to get through the flight.
EVER ORDER ANYTHING FROM THE SKYMALL CATALOG? I thought about it a few times. There was actually a camera called a Photo-Sniper – it was a film camera that could be mounted on a gun stock and you took a photo by pulling a trigger on the gun stock. Yeah, you think I’m going to be able to take that ANYWHERE these days? Are you serious???
WHAT CAMERAS ARE JOINING YOU ON THE TRIP? After much thought, it will be my two Nikon Df shooters – the black Nikon will hopefully capture a wide-angle view of the eclipse, while the silver Nikon will get soldered to my Matusov 1000mm mirror lens. Two opportunities to snag that ring of fire eclipse. I’m bringing one tripod with me, and I have a rental tripod at a San Antonio camera shop waiting for me – a Manfrotto, my first time using one of those tripods. I hear they’re quite excellent and are as rock-steady as a Buckingham Palace guard.
And by the time you read this blog post … I should be in the air and off to Texas for my eclipse photography vacation.
Nest stop – San Antonio, with a layover in Atlanta.
See you then.
Chuck The Writer 
It’s a good thing you never met my uncle Malcolm; he always had a ‘flight story’ from his frequent travels and they were enough to put anyone off flying. I’ve never had a decent flight in my life, so I guess it’s a family tradition? Most of the time the trouble was due to incompetence of the airline, which is SOP for our Canadian carriers.
LikeLike
Have safe and easy flights, Chuck, and a successful photo mission. Can’t wait to see the results.
LikeLike