Red-eye travel lived up to its name

Most of the week was heavenly, but coming home was another story entirely.

The heavenly part involved visiting great friends in Pasadena and South Pasadena, driving the Pacific Coast Highway, visiting wineries near Paso Robles and walking on the California beach. Any single part of that qualifies as a great vacation, but when you combine them in less than a week, you have something truly special.

And then it was time to come home.

We’d decided to fly back from California via the “red-eye” out of Los Angeles. That’s a late-night flight back to Chicago that arrives about 5:30 a.m. and allows for connections back to Dayton.

On the way out, we’d flown into Burbank on the advice of our west coast friends. It’s a no-stress airport reminiscent of Fort Wayne’s, a great way to get into the megalopolis that is LA. But there were no return flights when we needed them, so we were stuck with LAX.

We also were driving a rental car, which had to be returned by a set time.

Calculating our departure time Thursday was more than a little complicated. Our flight was scheduled for 11:15 p.m., so we needed to be at the airport two hours before that, and the rental car was due back by 9 p.m. But we were setting out from Morro Bay, more than 230 miles north of Los Angeles, and we were clueless about what sort of traffic we would run into.

Eventually, we decided to set out about 11 a.m. and dawdle, stretching our time in the sunshine. That translated into goofing around in San Luis Obispo for a few hours and stopping for ice cream in Santa Barbara.

Then it was time to head south. And almost immediately the Garmin unit perched on the dashboard told us that traffic ahead was stopped and there would be a delay.

It was the first of many to come. For about 100 miles, we found ourselves slowing to a crawl, then a stop, then accelerating up to 50 miles an hour, then slowing and stopping again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

The next 20 or 30 miles were essentially a nightmare of multi-lane traffic and more cars than ought to be in the same place at the same time. By then it was growing dark, and we were willing to sit in the airport a little longer simply to be out of traffic.

With the rental returned, we split a burger at the airport — that means, an $18.50 burger — for dinner and settled in.

And waited. And waited.

The first sign the flight would be delayed came about 10:15 p.m. Departure at that point was bumped back an hour. It would be bumped again. And again.

At 2:15 a.m. California time — three hours late — our flight to Chicago took off.

Though we were glad to be off the ground, we also knew that meant we’d miss our flight to Dayton.

So, after spending about six hours at Los Angeles International, we now faced the prospect of spending about five and a half hours more at Chicago’s O’Hare. There was nothing to do but wait.

It was about 4:30 p.m. Friday when we finally arrived in Dayton. Our bags were already there; they’d caught an earlier flight.

Pulling into town about an hour and a half later, I stopped at the newspaper office to grab a week’s worth of papers. Ray Cooney was there — he is often there — and asked me when Connie and I had seen our last bedtime. The answer: Wednesday night.

It was time to hit the sack.