WELL, HOWDY! Return of The Friday Martini - Qantas' Revenge

So, here we go trying to get back on track after a hectic start to the year. As a Traveler I've been living up to my reputation. As a martini "researcher", the last month has been a little short on success.

But it's time to get back to the basics.

In light of both travel and of martinis, this little puppy comes to us courtesy the Little Ludlow Bar at Melbourne International Airport, roughly three years ago. 

We were flying from Perth to Auckland, with a connection in Melbourne. What began as a two hour layover was greatly extended via a frustrating and somewhat-eventful six hour delay -- which made finding a local watering hole a necessary and appreciated distraction. 

Not only did the delay cost us our sleep (early evening flight turned to an early morning flight...2am, to be precise), but the resultant exhaustion on our part cost an entire day of touring Auckland. The delay also set us down into Auckland in the midst of a strong tropical storm. Harrowing is a light term from the pitching approach and solid thump as we connected with Tarmac. Fun times.

I've got it written down somewhere, but I think this was Stoli vodka. The wine was a local Sauvignon Blanc, ordered by my wife (who doesn't usually drink...which should tell you something about our delay).

Welcome to the Weekend!!

Pic of the Day: Blast from the Past

Living, as I do, under the departing flight path for Long Beach Airport, the subject of aircraft noise is a touchy one, inciting all sorts of hot opinions from both sides of the argument.

But the one thing I think we all agree upon is our love of the deep, throaty rumble of World War II era aircraft which visit our fair city a few times a year. B-17s, B-25s and other vintage aircraft show up for various air shows, wowing the crowds and neighborhoods with their presence.

It's one of my favorite aircraft-related sounds.

Pic of the Day: Welcome to Monday

Arise, go forth and conquer!

Pic of the Day: Squall Line!

If you fly enough you will encounter just about any kind of weather, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

A winter squall blew into Salt Lake City during a layover, creating the below tempest over the airport.

In the half hour boarding process the storm changed from a cold rain to a snowstorm, requiring additional delays while the place was de-iced.

As we taxied the runway I recalled how this sort of weather system would often shut down an airport in years past, but with modern technologies and aircraft it's just part of the plan.

2014 Year in Review

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, Adventure."
                                                             -- J.K. Rowling






By any yardstick, 2014 has been, for me, an astonishing year for travel -- and I considered myself pretty well traveled already... 

First, I'd like to offer a strong "Thank you" to every one of my readers who have come along with me along the way. It hasn't been an easy year in some ways, but in others it's been truly amazing.

The statistics alone are startling: More than 65,000 miles on 9 different airlines. According to my FF mileage reports, nearly 90 flights. Business Class, Coach and First. Business and Personal. 24 domestic airports and five international.

Honolulu from above

A handful of delays, and a couple violent weather incidents. (Landings, mostly. Las Vegas -- a monsoon; and Auckland -- tropical storm -- top the list.) But for the most part an amazingly smooth series of flights. There were several cancellations, but not a single missed connection in the mix. That's a pretty solid record for my airline friends.

Storm blowing into Port Douglas, QLD

There were a few new things: my first flight on an Airbus A-380. Still ugly as sin on the outside, but nicely appointed and comfortable on the inside. The much more trim looking 777 was also a first for us. Virgin Australia has done a brilliant job of creating an uber-chic and relaxing environment.

But airline travel was not my only mode of conveyance. A tremendous variety of automobiles

Business Class Cabin - Qantas A-380

 got me around large swaths of territory in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, adding two new countries and three American states to my list of adventures.

And speaking of adventures, 2014 was a year full of them -- both good and not so much.

By far the most significant was the retirement of not one, but two of three N.O.W. LIFE LIST 2014 goals: snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, and dipping my feet in the Indian Ocean. Add in side-trips to two wine areas, the Blue Mountains, Perth and Auckland, New Zealand and you can readily understand why our May trip Down Under was not only the highlight of the year, but probably one of the best adventures in the last thirty years.

Bridge to Hanalei Bay

Later in the year we made a two-week jaunt over to Hawaii and spent time in one of our favorite places on Earth: Hanalei Bay. The beauty and tranquility of Kauai's north shore never fails to win me over in a major way. I'm not certain I would want to retire there, but it's easily at the top of my list of Best Places on Earth.

But it didn't stop there. 

You might have noted I wrote "two of three" when referring to my 2014 Life List. The third was a visit to the awe-inspiring Monument Valley, one of the most astonishingly beautiful desert locales in the American midwest. It's justifiably famous for the views it offers, and easily puts man in his place in the universe. 

Monument Valley

Work requirements saw a tremendous leap in my domestic travel, with trips two or three times a month throughout the Western United States. To a wide diversity of locations and environments: Dallas; Missoula; Las Vegas; Seattle; Albuquerque; the middle of South Dakota; Portland; Honolulu; Phoenix; The Bay Area; Reno; Austin; Minneapolis; San Diego -- and in many cases hundreds of miles along the highways and byways in between many of these spots.

Other personal trips included jaunts to San Diego and Las Vegas; an attempt to visit the fog-enshrouded Bryce Canyon; Maui; and a complete circumnavigation of The Grand Canyon -- without a single sighting of the Canyon itself.

Yes, there were some negatives. Being ill on my second day in Monument Valley was no fun, nor were the at-times unavoidable airline delays of hours and hours in airport terminals -- two of which resulted in rough weather at our destination, compounding the inconvenience. 

(As I noted in comments above, the two most memorable were A- an eight hour delay in Melbourne which resulted in landing during a tropical storm in Auckland, and, B- its stateside twin of a four hour delay in Phoenix, with a monsoonal landing in Las Vegas. I'm not a fan of storm-related landings, and these were two of the most energetic.)

Cheers

In summary, 2014 tested my mettle as a traveler, and I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. (The intermittent health and operational hiccups along the way were unfortunate but unavoidable. C'est la vie.)

As we close in on the end of 2014, I offer a twin toast to the old year and the new. 

May good adventures find you, and liven up your life. Cheers.



Some highlights from 2014, a year On the Road (and in the air):

Leaving Long Beach

Wall Drug Store, South Dakota

View from the new Vegas High Roller

Sunrise in the Bay Area

Live band in Austin

The Great Barrier Reef

Selfie at the Reef

The Sydney Opera House

Stormy skies over Melbourne

Laguna Beach

The Vegas Strip

Seeing the Indian Ocean for the first time

Perth

Skies over Montana

Into Monument Valley

Road to Hana

The Hanalei Valley, Kauai

The New Zealand rainforest

The View from Below

Airport Adventures

"Everything has changed. The flying changed. The airports have changed."

                                 - Eydie Gorme

As I sit here working on a very busy Year in Review column, I want to take a brief moment to post a thought or two about the airport experience, particularly at my local hometown -- and favorite --airport: Long Beach (LGB).


There is something exciting about an airport. The adventure, the milling crowds, the sense that, if given half a chance, you could jump in line, book passage to exotic places and be off before common sense was allowed to reestablish itself.

The new Long Beach Airport, which a few years ago completed a major overhaul, brings back a good sense of adventure commonly missing from today's labyrinthian aviation leviathans. 

As I sit at the gate, I have a full view of the northern half the runway as a JetBlue flight from Las Vegas lands less than a quarter mile away -- and within minutes is pulling up at the terminal gate. Moments later another JetBlue A320 pushes out,  and in a few minutes I watch the flight as it thunders down the runway and launches into the air. It roars gracefully upward, gently curving southward towards the Pacific, a flight path I've ridden dozens of times.

Just fifty or so feet away from me is a US Airways CRJ jet being prepped for the short flight to Phoenix. I am at ground level too, and it's a perspective lost in the gigantic raised caverns and swing gates at LAX, or PHX, DFW and most other city airports. At Long Beach we march out onto the Tarmac, boarding up a switchback ramp to get to the aircraft door. It's an easier ascent than the long-ago rolling stairways mounted on the backs of modified pickups that were a staple of airports in the 20th century.

This, I think to myself, is what we thought -- hoped -- the future would look like. Not the sterile bus boarding platforms and busy gates, but a more casual, adventurous energy that early air travelers no doubt felt as they, too, stepped out onto the open air Tarmac and up the ramp. It's an energy and exotica that I remember from my childhood before all air terminals became virtual carbon copies of design. Yes, some small accents here and there to tell you where you are, but other than a handful of North American facilities -- Vancouver, Austin, Santa Ana, Denver, among others -- they're pretty cookie cutter. Shopping malls with airline gates.

To me a well-designed airport is not a matter of size, it's a matter of design. Of intent.

And of a sense of adventure.