The Travails of Travel

Life of travelling on the AVP Tour can sometimes be nice (like when you get upgraded to first class) or it can be downright nasty. This past weekend in Miami it was pretty nasty for me.

It started off with a 2am wake up call on Friday morning. This of course was my own fault as I booked a 6am flight out of LA on American. It was a great fare and I had to be in Miami early in order to be at a clinic sponsored by Hilton Hotels at 5pm. It was a tough drive, but with my trusty sunflower seeds and water I made it to LAX with plenty of time to spare. The flight itself was actually great. LAX direct to Miami and I slept pretty much the whole way.

It really got tough though on the way home. I flew out of Ft. Lauderdale rather than Miami because for some reason it is much cheaper to fly out of there. I was fortunate that AVP Men's Player, Ryan Mariano and his girlfriend and AVP Women's Player, Saralyn Smith, were on the same flight as I was. They had rented a car and I hopped in for the 20 minute ride to the airport. We were supposed to fly out at 8:37pm but due to weather we left the gate around 9:15. The flight was a US Airways flight operated by America West to Las Vegas. It took us about another 30 minutes to get off the ground and by the time we got into Vegas we only had about 10 minutes to find our next gate. Unfortunately, Vegas is huge. We landed in the A/B Wing and our flight to LAX was out of the C Wing. To get to the C wing you have to go outside security and then re-enter at another part of the airport. Security wasn't even open to get into the C Wing so we were SOL.

We went to the US Airways desk as did about another 50 passengers and after standing in line for 30 minutes and watching everyone scream and yell at the US Airways employees we got our turn. They booked me on a 9:15am flight the next day and Ryan and Saralyn on a 10:45am flight the next day. We called the hotel we had a 50% off coupon for and of course they were "completely booked up." I suggested we charge it and rent a car to get to LAX. $160 bucks later and at 2am we were on our way out of Vegas and on to LAX.

Saralyn took the first 90 minutes and Ryan was the true gentlemen and sat in the passenger seat and kept her awake the entire time. I took the next 90 minutes which ended up being 150 minutes but I was on a roll. We had stopped in Vegas to get sunflower seeds and water and I was cracking the seeds like there was no tomorrow. Ryan and Saralyn got a quick snooze in while I was driving and to Ryan's credit he did wake up at almost exactly 90 minutes into my drive and ask me if I needed to switch. I told him I was on it and good to go. He was out about a minute later.

We made it to LAX a little before 6am. About a 4 hour drive with no traffic. I said my goodbye's and thanks to Ryan and Saralyn as they drove the rental car back to Alamo. I jumped in my car and proceeded to stuff more sunflower seeds in my mouth on the 90 minute drive to SB. Gotta give a shoutout to David for keeping me awake!

I was exhausted but had some stuff to do in SB before I could make the 45 minute drive home to Solvang. I got a painful but deerly needed deep tissue massage. Met with a lawyer to draw up a Living Trust. Then finally went to the gym at UCSB to get a workout in.

Needless to say, after sleeping about a total of maybe 1 hour and being very tired and sore after the tournament, flight, long driving time, and workout, I was utterly exhausted.