Short Flights Are the Longest

Everyone has tales of mayhem, madness and misery revolving around air travel including yours, truly. Some hate to fly, others are afraid to fly and then there are those who expect something for nothing. Layered in to that, of course, are the transcon flights stuck in a middle seat, the ten-hour flight to Europe next to a spoiled brat or screaming baby or the nightmare lines at check-in, security and baggage claim after a six hour delay for mechanicals and bad weather. Nothing starts a conversation among strangers like the shared, often embellished but just as frequently true and horrific stories of flying these days.

I'm kind of strange in that the longest flights in the world are the ones I enjoy the most, even in coach. I've flown London to San Francisco, Frankfurt to Chicago and both Melbourne and Sydney to Los Angeles in the back of the bus, none of which were my preference but all of which I survived just fine and would do again with no hesitation if meant staying home or going to Rome.

The longest flight in any class was Los Angeles to Hong Kong, a 15-hour haul that chased the sun from 1PM in California to about 8PM on arrival with scenic views of Yosemite National Park, Alaska and Siberia on the way over. Plenty of legroom, a flat-bed seat, no neighbor to step over or seatback leaning in to my lap. The upper classes are unquestionably better than being crammed in to a "slimline" Barcalounger that may or may not have a foot rest which is really little more than a road hazard on the way to the aisle.

Most seasoned travelers have their unique ways of coping with the drudgery of long-haul flying. One friend of mine from college took two Dramamine, drank a half bottle of wine and then pulled the blanket over his head with instructions not to be disturbed until landing. Others, like me, bring any amount of work, reading, music or videos to watch in case the inflight system is beyond dull, out of date or out of order. For me, the simplest method on top of all of these is to simply and quite seriously sit back, relax and enjoy the ten to twelve hours you're out of touch with the world.

Being anxious on a long-haul flight is counter-intuitive; fidgeting is most certainly not going to burn time any faster. Where I run in to trouble is being anxious on flights that aren't scheduled for longer than an hour and a half. As soon as I get on the plane I'm ready to get off and be where I'm supposed to be. The inevitable long taxi times to and from the runway, the endless circling to land and the wonder if the flight attendants will have time to pour me a drink all add up to the truest misery of air travel for me. Then comes today's realities of two hours before departure for the formalities, time at the destination for luggage and rental car?

I don't mind investing up to five hours of ground time on both ends for a flight that lasts three times as long. If flying were an ATM experience the "fee" for an international flight would still be a ridiculous 33% on top of the principle but two hours in advance of a 45-minute flight on the Shuttle?

I'd rather drive.

Gotta go!

Pipes and Snakes

I've never been one when privileged to travel on business simply to confine myself to the hotel, the office and a conference room. While absolutely aware that the company pays the freight for me to be out of town and expects a solid return on its investment I've also felt that as part of the compensation it is not unreasonable to stop and smell a few roses while in new or at least different surroundings. As long as I'm not adding to the company bill I don't mind taking time on my own to explore local attractions and experience why others call the area home where perhaps I never would.

Having flown in to Tucson to save what would add up to almost half off the air fare I took Sunday as the day to make my way north to Phoenix where I would be for the rest of the coming week. The early morning wake-up call saw me heading west along Highway #86 towards the Sonora Desert Museum for the first few hours of the day. I was a teenager the last time I was here but remembered that day well for its extremely large but thankfully caged examples of the Arizona state pet, the Western Diamondback rattlesnake. I was wondering if that same monster was still there.

That one wasn't but the highlight of the day for myself and other tourists was most decidedly of the unplanned variety. Two male rattlers came across each other and decided to engage in a round of "Thumbs," trying to pin each other to the ground in a show of dominance for any females that might also be nearby. The unplanned part was that I was less than five feet from these wild snakes that were loose in the park! The nonplused park ranger said there were about 70 or so slithering around keeping them busy trapping one or two a day. These two were both a good four feet in length and the loser, mad enough at losing the fight was not at all happy at being disturbed by the rangers pincers.

Two hours drive west of town and in the deep Sonoran Desert is Organ Pipe National Monument. I debated even going because of the drive to get there, time at the park and then the two and a half hour drive north to Phoenix at the end of the day. I might never be in this part of the country again so it was a question of going or not bothering. I'm glad I bothered.

The scenery wasn't quite Rand McNally in terms of rugged desert with mesas and peaks surrounding a ruler-straight stretch of asphalt but near enough to a scene like that. Highway #86 ran straight as an arrow for a nearly hypnotic length before flowing with the land to Highway #85 south to the park. I was the only visitor this crisp October day at three-thirty in the afternoon. The rangers suggested the 21-mile drive on unpaved road to see the Arch Canyon which is typically a two-hour drive through the signature pipe organ cacti along with various odds and ends of local flora and fauna.

I didn't see any more rattlers though I surely felt surrounded by them at any given moment I was away from the car. I might not have noticed if one had crawled across my shoe, I was so taken with the surrounding wilderness. This is the Arizona of travel brochures, glossy tourism magazines and films featuring the Duke and Randolph Scott. This is the America that never makes the evening news around the world. This is the kind of land ignored at highway speed and dreamed about once you get home.

And it was surely worth the time to have an entire national park to myself if only for a couple of hours.

Gotta go.

Mission Arizona

By the time the plane landed and I'd collected my luggage and the rental car I had maybe a solid afternoon of dashing about the desert around Greater Tucson to see what there was to see after a 32 year absence from this part of the country. Tombstone and Old Tucson were out as being too kitschy for me at the no longer young age of 40-never mind. I wanted the real Arizona, the living, breathing, historic southern state late of Mexico by way of the Gadsden Purchase and more than a few indigenous cultures. I wanted the Arizona of the Spanish Missions, saguaro cactus reaching nearly three full stories in to the sky and the red rocks of the sun, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Hey, I ain't that old!

A quick bite at In - N - Out Burger by the side of the highway to buy some time to make sure the two dozen travel brochures I'd picked through would yield the right combination of things to do and I was off, roaring down Interstate I-19 towards a previously unknown bit of history - the best kind - called Tumacacori. In this national park lie the ruins of three Spanish missions, the oldest of which dates from 1691. The one pictured here is the only one really worth seeing as it is the only one still standing and largely intact. The grounds evoke an era of no roads, hard scrabble living and unyielding frontier heat as the Jesuits fought wind, weather and warrior to convert the locals. It was a perfect blue sky early afternoon to start the whirlwind tour and a great way to see a nearly forgotten attraction by the side of the highway.

Motoring back north towards Tucson and the next stop on the list of things to do I was trying to decide what to do. Should I should rush through this next one just as quickly so as to try and get in a third before the sun went down and my time-warped body clock started over-drafting energy I knew I wouldn't have later? I had my answer as I pulled in to the parking area for the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, hardly ten miles south of Tucson. It still serves the Tohono O'odham people on whose land it has sat since 1699. The aesthetic claim to fame here is the elaborate, almost overwrought decor of the interior which has led some to describe it as the Sistine Chapel of North America.

I wasn't ready to go that far, for one reason being the setting, while beautiful, was still in the middle of a desert instead of anything even close to the Eternal City. The gold, myrrh and incense of the inside serves the standard purpose of awe and intimidation but the size of the building also detracts from such a lofty claim to greatness. Just the same it was and is a beautiful example of mission architecture and survives where few had before or since. After about an hour I knew what I had left to do.

The Pima Air Museum in South Tucson adjacent to Davis Monthan Air Force Base is a permanent homage to gallant, glorious and ghostly aircraft from days gone by. The airbase itself is the final resting place of over 4,000 military aircraft going back to at least the Korean War but the main attraction is Pima. Here I saw everything from the little "James Bond" spy plane seen in "Octopussy" to marauders like F-14s, F-4 Phantoms, B-52s, one of the 707 NASA "Vomit Comets" and an impossibly enormous beast called the B-36 "Peacemaker."

A splendid example of an old "Air Force One" Boeing 707 used by LBJ was also on hand but the crown jewel for me was the Lockheed Constellation, the inimitable "Connie" in full TWA colors. I'd never seen one up close.

Three stops in roughly seven hours, including driving and I'd seen certainly more than I had expected, all of it new and beautiful, especially Pima. One wonders if a 747 will one day make it over from the nearby commercial aircraft boneyard at Marana.

Gotta go.