Chicago to the Bay: Prelude & Day 1

This May, I received a mass email from my friend M, originally from the Bay Area, who had been working in Michigan on a six-month stint starting December '09. She said she would be crashing with her friend in Chicago for a couple of days following the termination of her job in mid-June, and was looking for company to drive back home from there to the Bay -- and in the process, do some sightseeing in the middle of America.

The way I see it, if an opportunity arises which seems fun and/or new, and that is not going to put a major dent in my wallet or in whatever is left of my sanity, then I should take it. I had never stepped foot in any red state and was rather curious to see the "real America"; I had a modest amount of money saved up which would suffice for the cost of living for a week in those places; I had found a good legal assistant who could take care of my bullshit while I was gone; and M would be a good, low-maintenance, moderate-energy, type B travel companion. Plus, God bless my friends who are settled down with pets or kids or partners or some such, but I selfishly adore and plan to exploit my spinsterhood to the fullest. So, I told M I was in.

I bought a one-way ticket to Chicago and landed there on June 15. I returned home on June 24. The next few posts will entail a day-by-day account of the events, with tips, photographs, and lessons learned. Many long-winded and gratuitous details regarding the relatively uneventful portions of the trip should be expected.

June 15

I flew out of SFO, since there were no direct flights from Oakland to Chicago. Or maybe there were, but they were expensive. I don't remember.

Anyway, the flight itinerary reflected that it was an Alaska Airlines flight, "operated by" American Airlines. I thus BARTed to SFO and then deboarded the airport shuttle at the terminal containing Alaska Airlines. I had been hoping not to have to check in my bag and just get my boarding pass using the e-ticket machine -- but the e-ticket machine kept telling me it couldn't pull up my information. With clenched fists, furrowed brows, and ujjayi breaths, I proceeded to wait in the check-in line for Alaska Airlines, which was the longest one I had seen in years. About twenty minutes in, an Alaska Airlines employee came around and asked if anybody had flights that were supposed to be boarding within the next hour, and I told her my flight number. She confirmed the end destination, and said I was in the wrong terminal, and that I should be in American Airlines, as that is the airlines by which my flight is "operated."

D'oh!

I sprinted to the other terminal and successfully printed out my boarding pass at the American Airlines e-ticket machine, only to be cock-blocked by airport personnel while attempting to enter security checkpoint, and told that my bag was too big for carry-on per the new TSA guidelines.

Dammit!

Then, of course American Airlines charged $25 to check in the bag. It would have been just $15 were it truly Alaska Airlines.

Then, at security checkpoint, my gold bracelets set off the metal detector, and I was heavily frisked by the security personnel. Seriously, there is no need for a monthly breast self-exam if one is a frequent flyer with fobby bracelets.

At last, I made it to the gate just as boarding was being completed.

The flight was pleasant. I slept during most of it, since the best sleep I get is in moving vehicles. Upon landing, I saw a text from M saying she was stuck in traffic coming to the airport and might be 15-20 late. My flight had landed on time, but I still needed to get my bag, so I thought the timing would work out perfectly. It turns out that they didn't even turn on the conveyor belt for the bags until about 20 minutes after landing, but at last, I got my bag, and by then, M had made it too.

I got my first sight of traffic by the Chicago airport, and it was some wild and crazy bumper-to-bumper action. Surprisingly, once we got into downtown, there was barely any traffic, and parking in front of Lou Malnati, a popular pizza joint, was a total breeze. The Chicago-style pizza at Lou Malnati was quite the bomb, although it didn't carry the fragrance that Zachary's Chicago-style pizza in Berkeley, CA carries. After the pizza, we hit up a piano bar that was pretty dead, and then went to M's friend's place and crashed.