Learning to fly

When I was a journalist on a budget, I was accustomed to booking flights based almost solely on price. This sometimes led me to fly out of and into cities that were three or four hours from my home, all for the sake of saving a few dollars. That habit has unfortunately followed me, and I can only hope that when I am traveling regularly for work, I will learn how to travel properly.

This morning, my alarm was set for 5 a.m., but as is often the case when early morning travel approaches, I really woke up somewhere in the 3 to 3:30 a.m. range and never fell back to sleep. At 6 a.m., a van came to my parents' house to take me to the airport. I flew to Atlanta. At that airport, I took the famous "Plane Train" -- the farthest distance it can go, incidentally. I flew to New York City. I took the AirTran people-mover to the Howard Beach Station. I boarded the A subway and went what felt like 1,100 stops to Times Square. I took the 7 to Grand Central. I took the Metro North back to New Haven, a little less than two hours away. I took a cab home. All in all, I was traveling for about 12 hours.

As I think back, I wonder: Was it really impossible to fly directly into New Haven? How much more expensive would it have been, truly? I could've been home in a matter of hours, probably, rather than taking the entire day.

But home I am, and it's nice to be here. Real nice. There's snow on the ground, but not too much of it anymore. Most importantly -- my car's still here. So were some interesting pieces of mail, including a jury-duty notification. Back in Texas, I got one of those shortly before I moved away, and I was able to check off the "student" box as a legitimate excuse for being unavailable. But here in CT, being a student doesn't appear to be an excuse! So I will be there in a few weeks; hope it lasts only one day.