An adventure in sunny California

Last week’s edition of the Green River Star featured a column I wrote about all the places I would like to travel.

Well I’d now like to say that other than a trip I’ve already paid for to Las Vegas, I don’t plan on going anywhere out of state for a long time.

As I had mentioned in the column, I was going to San Francisco and I was excited to get to the airport and get out of town for a few days.

The line for security looked long, but in no time I was through the line and ready to catch my flight.

The first sign that something was wrong is when I got paged over the loud speaker by Southwest Airlines.

I was told that my connecting flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco had been cancelled and their wasn’t a seat available to San Francisco for quite awhile. It turned out they were able to get me to Oakland, Calif. on a direct flight, so it turned out all right, it was still a pain.

After a great night with friends outside of San Francisco I took a spot on the couch ready for a big day of sightseeing and a concert.

After 3 a.m. I was awakened to what felt like the couch was a plane flying through some pretty brutal turbulence. In a matter of moments I was on the floor.

I had no idea what had happened and it took me a little while to get my bearings and realize that it was an earthquake.

Not only was it an earthquake, it was the biggest one to hit the Bay Area in 25 years.

While it was short, it was scary. It didn’t do much damage but broke a few glasses and bottles, one of which I stepped on.

Not a great ending to what was a good night.

The next day was all about seeing San Francisco for the first time. It was as beautiful as any city I’ve been too, but there were far to many people and everything was so expensive.

Lunch turned into a $50 affair. We’re talking lunch, not a fancy steakhouse dinner.

That night when I arrived to see Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails, the line for security was out of control. It was taking forever.

Turns out there was a murder at the venue the night before during a rap concert.

Just my luck, and I’m pretty sure the security lady touched something she wasn’t supposed to.

It was a short trip and I had to take off the next morning. As I was getting up in the morning, an aftershock hit. Another great way to start the morning.

I than ate breakfast at the airport. It was almost $20 bucks for a croissant and a orange juice.

After a connecting flight to Phoenix I was very eager to get to Salt Lake City. As I had just got a seat near the back of the plane, luckily getting one of the final spots for my carryon, they made an announcement that they were unable to sit a mother with her child and asked if someone would be willing to give them a seat and move to a middle seat.

If you have never have flown Southwest it is like the running of the bulls. There are no assigned seats, just an A, B, and C boarding. If you are C, good luck finding a descent seat or any room to put your stuff.

After the announcement, it was quiet on the plane. You could really hear a pin drop.

Finally since nobody said anything, I decided I would do a good deed and switch seats. I could not believe that no one was willing to do this.

Put down your phones and be a human being once in a while.

I ended up between a lady with a screaming baby and a young kid flying for the first time who threw up for about 90 straight minutes.

At one point the kid decided that eating two bags of peanuts was a good idea. Not so much. They went everywhere, including my pants.

It was the fitting end to a wonderful trip.