4 May 2024: Compared with yesterday's inclement weather, today was a breath of fresh air and most welcomed. There were clear, smokey blue skies when I woke up and the good weather continued. I awoke around 0222hrs mainly because I was fretting about the long flight ahead of me, but the good weather made me feel a little better about the trip, not that I wouldn't have rejoiced had an announcement came through about the event I was attending being cancelled. Not that I really wanted it to be; it's good meeting with the Americans once a year and this will be my 10th event, or 10 in a row, so to speak, so I'm kind of a veteran of the circuit. Who wants to be a veteran?
There are always hassles when travelling and this trip proved no exception except to say that it all turned out okay (or did it? More later on that one!).
I started my journey in a taxi, but when the driver intimated that there might be a problem with the M25, I asked him to take me to the railway station where I jumped on the 0810 train to Victoria and then took the tube to Paddington where I picked up the Heathrow Express. I decided to purchase a single ticket as I might get the Elizabeth Line when I get back to the UK next Saturday at the early hour of 0740hrs. I'll be flying back from New York, having already flown from Columbus to New York that same day.
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| En route to Chicago and enjoying every minute! |
The check-in at Heathrow (Terminal 3) was relatively easy, although I had tried checking in on my iphone whilst on the Heathrow Express, but no joy. It didn't matter, it was all fairly smooth and soon I met up with my colleague for breakfast. While I'm not keen on Wagamama, the fact that breakfast was an option changed things slightly. I ordered a Japanese omelette and a bright green 'power' drink for added positivity. Unknowingly, I'd need that positivity later in the day although in all honesty I think it deserted me.
Soon it was time to head for Gate 31. In fact, we almost missed the flight as the gate was announced as 'closing' so we hoofed it, but when we reached it there was a full complement of passengers still sitting around waiting to board. A false alarm if ever there was one.
I had a great seat, 12A, and I soon discovered that 12B and 12C would remain vacant and that I would have the whole row to play with, not that I played with anything other than my notepad and pen [writing this very post]. Either way it was a result, the whole row to myself and loads of extra leg room. While I started to settle, I couldn't drum up any enthusiasm for the journey. However, put it this way: having seat 12a and an empty row makes things a lot better than they might otherwise have been. I've booked a similar seat for my return journey from New York, so let's hope there's nobody else in the row. Right now, however, I just wish I could be in Chicago or, better still, my ultimate destination: Columbus, Ohio.
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| Monty's Bakehouse pastry – the best! |
The plane (with me in it!) has departed from Heathrow, gone over South Wales and gently passed over the southern tip of Ireland and is now mid-Atlantic running a true air speed of 553 mph as it approaches something called the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone, whatever that might be; we're flying at 37,000 feet and there are all these odd places, like Gloria Ridge, Eirik Ridge and others that I'm guessing are markers of some sort, but I neither know nor care.
I don't like flying at the best of times. Or rather I don't mind it, but if I could take the train I would. Whenever I go to Europe I try to let the train take the strain, but you can't train it across the Atlantic... not yet at any rate! Imagine a bridge!
One thing I do like to have is a choice and when such a thing eludes me, I get a little irritated. So, I'm sitting here, the lunch service finishes and they decide to dim everyone's windows and giving everything a dark blue tint. Personally I prefer the plastic shutters or blinds or whatever they're called because they give the passenger the choice of whether to look out of the window or not. I called a member of the cabin crew and she fixed it for me.
So now I sit here with five hours and 37 minutes to go and I'm already bored shitless. I will probably read some of James O'Brien's How they Broke Britain, but not yet as I feel very restless and anxious. There's five hours and 23 minutes to go.
I'm trying my best not to eat badly. It helps that during the week I've been visiting a place called Busy Beans (in Redhill) and having light salads for lunch and trying also not to eat more than a couple of slices of bread each day.
There's four hours and 50 minutes until we reach Chicago O'Hare and I'm the only one with my window "open", so to speak. Everybody else has that aforementioned deep blue tint which has plunged the cabin into darkness, it's as if it's the middle of the night and people are sleeping and doing stuff in the dark making my little corner the only ray of light. I certainly don't want to pretend it's night time when it isn't, but I feel under pressure as if they're all whispering under their breath, asking me, pressuring me to 'turn that light out' but I'm not going to; I don't want to watch their crappy movies or listen to the airline's awful choice of music. I was hoping I'd at least be able to listen to that great guitar riff from Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, but there's nothing but crap stuff and likewise the movies.
I mean, who the fuck is Robert Finley? Who is Tony Joe White when he's at home? Who is Pony Bradshaw? Andrea Von Kampen? Anybody? Natalie Hemby? Matt Berninger? You get my drift, I'm sure you do. There was hardly anything worthy under 'Classic Hits', nothing I knew at any rate. Celebrate Women's Voices? No! Who the hell is Camille Yarbrough? Only Isaac Hayes stood out, but there was no sign of his Theme from Shaft. And let's not make out it was easy to hear any of this stuff: the sound of the plane's engines put paid to that and I didn't particularly want to mess around poking earphones in my ears.
I am considering watching an animated movie without sound. But which one? There's a lot of dross. In fact, what a piss poor collection of 'entertainment'.
Outside the cloud has gone away and I can see the Atlantic Ocean below me and it looks flat calm from up here at 38,000 feet. The plane is heading for St. Johns, Newfoundland, at 555 mph and we've left behind the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone with just over four hours flying left to do.
Watching an animated movie with the sound down is fantastic and reminds me of 'old times'. I can just glance up at it now and then while I'm writing and occasionally staring out of the window. It's great.
But then I was caught unawares by one of the cabin crew. "Vanilla ice cream, sir?" At least with American Airlines you get called 'sir'. With British Airways you're only called sir if you're in business class, revealing, of course, the British obsession with class and privilege. The female cabin crew member held out a small and inviting tub of the stuff and I foolishly weakened. It was rock hard so I'm leaving it alone for a while. Actually, it wasn't very nice, there was no taste at all, but then perhaps that's vanilla ice cream for you.
The animated movie I was watching, incidentally, is called The Inventor and its good just to glance at it occasionally without really knowing what's going on.
As if by magic, the cloud is back, it's like a huge sheet of ice stretching into the distance and there's no let-up. We could be in the Arctic, but I know I'm not, we're almost over Newfoundland and the city of St. Johns.
"And they wandered in to the city of St. Johns without a dime."
What a great song! Steely Dan, the Royal Scam, a great song and an amazing album, but not on the sound system of the flight.
There's three hours and 53 minutes to go and the rest of the aircraft is still in darkness. I have the only source of light and I love it, just me.
I've been clock-watching for a fair bit now and I'm thinking that when the big hand of my watch completes another circuit there will be just under three hours to go. We're still flying at 38,000 feet, the cloud outside still looks like a sheet of solid ice and there's a man behind me who keeps coughing. Just my luck if he has Covid, but let's hope not. Sniffing, coughing, clearing his throat, he's a big, fat fucker and I hate having him sitting behind me spreading his awful germs everywhere.
The Inventor is a strange movie (or it is if you watch it with the sound down). When I get home I'll see if it's on Netflix or Prime and watch it with sound on. What I can say is this: it's well done, nicely put together. I just can't get over the cloud below me and I can't imagine the plane cutting through it. There's three hours and 42 minutes to go and that equates to 1,905 miles more to travel.
I'm hoping that the back of my chair will act as a shield and keep the bloke behind me's germs in his court and not mine, hitting the back of my seat and then hitting him in the face, a continuous loop.
The cloud has dispersed again and in places I can see the Atlantic Ocean. I hate clock-watching but that's what I'm doing. There's three hours and 30 minutes left to go.
And now there's two hours and 12 minutes until we reach O'Hare and it's possible, here and there, to see land below, the odd lake, even roads are visible. The Inventor ended and now I'm watching Deadland, but this time with sound. It looks good and I'll definitely be looking out for it when I get home, but it isn't that good, nothing ever is.
I'm wondering if there will be any more food, perhaps not. Outside the clouds still look solid and snow-like again and we've just passed over Portland, Maine – according to the flight map. It's lunch time in Chicago, which is kind of weird as it was sort of lunch time when I left London.
I could do without a connecting flight to Columbus, but that's the journey. Fortunately, it's a short flight, under an hour I would imagine once we're in the air.
One hour and 46 minutes to go on this flight. I'd like to think some more food is on the way, just to break up the monotony, a cup of tea, a biscuit, anything, but it's gone all quiet on the Western Front, so to speak.
With just under an hour to go, Lake Michigan hoves into view on the left hand side of the aircraft. Is that port or starboard, I can't remember. I think it's the port side. If my memory serves me correctly, we head south (or turn left) at some point and then begin our descent into Chicago O'Hare over the lake. We have yet to lose altitude with 59 minutes to go and the cloud a little more dispersed than it has been.
It's been a quiet flight. I haven't heard any kids screaming or babies crying. In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen any families, unless they're all at the rear of the plane, but I don't think so.
The lights are coming on and the people seem to be reviving themselves, their movies finished, their books read and I swear I can smell coffee, not that I'll be having any, perhaps another tea instead. Lake Michigan is visible again from my window and I'm pretty sure we'll be banking left at any minute. The coughing and spluttering man has returned to his seat – where the hell did he go? – and the cabin crew have just whizzed by with a trolley, meaning they are planning to serve something, probably a hot drink. The sun is shining and it's just dawned on me that, give or take, I've been writing for around seven hours.
Perhaps that wasn't Lake Michigan as we haven't veered left yet so perhaps we might not veer left after all. I can't remember.
Wow! Monty's Bakehouse red pepper, tomato and paprika pastry – or calzone as the cabin crew called it. Amazing! And I could certainly eat another one, that's for sure. There's 48 minutes to go and we're still at 38,000 feet so perhaps I was wrong about Lake Michigan. In fact, I WAS wrong, it was Lake Erie.
The plane is making its descent into O'Hare as I write this. We are between Flint and Grand Rapids, both places you see mentioned on destination boards if you walk past the gates in an American air terminal. We're flying at 32,000 feet and counting. Those white clouds – or rather that blanket of white cloud – that looks a little more like clouds now, but it's possible (just) to see land below it.
I'm always amazed at how the cabin crew just get on with it, while I get more and more anxious about the whole thing. I can see a patchwork quilt of fields below me and soon they'll be asking me to stow away my table top or whatever it's called.
It's time to swallow as the pressure starts to affect my ears, we're now at 30,000 feet.
I forgot all about the security, ie immigration and customs. A video explaining the whole process is now being screened – and now I can see Lake Michigan, it's huge, it has beaches!
I never listen to the information videos on a plane, I simply follow the signs when I get there. It's funny how, now we are over the lake, we've left the clouds behind. They look like a huge white hedge which, come to think of it, will be waiting for us on the other side – we're surrounded – although I reckon we'll slip underneath them by the time we get there. There's around 20 minutes until we land.
"Flight attendants, please prepare for landing."
I'm now balancing my notebook on my lap and waiting for when we land. We're at 8,999 feet now and counting. I'm guessing the plane is lining itself up with the runway. In the distance I can see a bank of clouds waiting for us, but perhaps we'll be low enough to miss them. 7,002 feet and 324 mph. We bank right and then straighten up. Now we're banking right again. It's very hazy out there. I can see a boat of some kind, cargo barge, and we're still banking right, but have now straightened up again. I can see the city, skyscrapers clustered together close to the lake, the sun shining as we approach dry land. The lake sparkles in the sunshine, there's a marina, houses, car parks, a motorway, cars travelling hither and thither, the plane shaking a little as a suburban church pops up. More baseball pitches, more houses, more wooded areas and soon I'd imagine, there will be airport buildings. We fly over a runway and we land, the engines go into reverse thrust mode and we are down at 2.45pm local time (0845pm in the UK). Time to head for immigration and baggage reclaim.
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