In the Wee Small Hours...

As you can see from the ol' clock on the nightstand, we finally staggered into our room at a little after 4am last night - this morning, rather. That's 4:10 CA time, which means 7:10am back home, which in turn means that Jenn spent a full 24 hours awake. (I, being the loving and supportive boyfriend that I am, barely acknowledged her when she got up for work and slept my freelance ass in for another few hours.)

The trip got off to an ok start. The first leg of the flight, from Philly to Chicago, flew by as we watched our latest piece of Netflix-acquired research material: Don Siegel's Escape From Alcatraz. In the run-up to the trip, we also brushed up on Birdman of Alcatraz, Bullitt, and the Hitchcock area diptych, Vertigo and The Birds.

The O'Hare/SFO leg was a tad more miserable, being delayed about ninety minutes while we waited for our pilots to arrive. Then the armrest sound systems in our row were on the blink, so we missed out on the in-flight entertainment: The Last Mimzy (which I missed when it ran theatrically) and Blades of Glory (which I saw, with unfortunately functional audio). Jenn can't sleep on planes, so she was kinda screwed; I, on the other hand, jammed the iPod earbuds in and slumped against the window, dozing intermittently for the 4 1/2-hour flight.



Here we are looking bleary-eyed and disheveled on the AirTrain between the terminals and the rental car area at SFO. I note with some displeasure how eerily Michael Moore my beard growth is at this stage.

The more superstitious-minded readers among you may note that the inconveniences coincided with the arrival of Friday the 13th; I will of course now scoff at you. After all, if the worse a cursed semi-annual date can offer is slight delays and minor annoyances, then mister, I'll take that house on the old Indian burial ground, thankyouverymuch.

Finally, we did arrive at the lovely Best Western El Rancho Inn in beautiful downtown Millbrae, CA. Fine in a no-frillsedly functional way, but maybe AAA should knock off one of those three diamonds considering the train that rumbles window-rattlingly by at regular intervals throughout the night. Yeah, we usually go the B&B route, but one) when you're arriving in the middle of the night after 12 hours of traveling you want quick and right next to the airport; and two) the less we spend on the creature comforts, the more we have left to restock our wine cabinet. Yes, I know the first step is admitting you have a problem. No, I'm not yet ready to take that step.