On the Road

Continued from page 10

The plane finally lumbered into LA. I waited ‘til folks were mostly clear before I waddled out. There was supposed to be a wheelchair at the gate for me—there wasn’t. It took forever to get one, and time was ticking away for us to make our connection. LA’s commuter terminal isn’t attached to the air terminal itself but is an island terminal about a mile away. Connection to that is by bus, and we arrived to find no buses. The delay in getting a bus is likely what caused us to miss our plane. These buses go out onto the tarmac and weave through moving airplanes and service vehicles near the gate areas to reach the commuter terminal. Our trip was a crazy run that included stopping for arriving and departing aircraft, and for the local fire department that was responding to a call at the airport.

There was no sign of our plane when we arrived—despite their knowing we were coming and in the hands of airport transport. They “had to” leave. This earned us a free overnight stay at a three-star hotel courtesy of American Airlines, plus a snack voucher each towards breakfast. We were rebooked on a flight to Phoenix at 7:30 a.m. with a two plus hour layover before our direct flight into Sacramento. After being wheeled to our gate, we sat and watched Eagles fans arriving for the Super Bowl, which was fun. On the flight into Sacramento, I enjoyed the view from the window seat of desert and canyons, and mountain snow over very sparsely populated parts of our country.

Finally in Sacramento, we made quick work of getting a rental from Alamo so we could get to the hospital. We had time with my dad Friday evening and most of Saturday. I had the