Airports suck.

Airports have become extremely stressful places. We had to get to the airport at 5:00 am to catch a 7:00 am flight. ATA has a nice niche as a discount flier, but they obviously take the worst gates and counterspace. It took us some time to navigate and find them. Not an especially troublesome action in itself, but throw in a baby and too much baby gear and it becomes a real trial.

ATA did not provide the plastic bag for the car seat that other travelers told us would be available. As a result, we carried on our car seat. Lugging it was a pain, getting it filthy going through the x-ray check point was another matter. And TSA guys aren't all very nice and understanding. Some of them are quite rude and bossy. And the advantage is in their court, because hell, they change the rules every couple of weeks. No one can really keep up.

Oakland airport was especially bad on our return. It took nearly two hours from the time our 30 minute late plan landed until the time we left the airport. Then the baggage claim took forever. When we got their bags from flight 4822 were circulating. It took about 15 minutes before our flight 4830 started going around. In between, about 7 bags from a mythical flight 4828 came out the shoot. They circulated untouched by anyone. I felt somewhat sorry for the persons who were looking for their bags off that unposted flight, but figured if they were wizards on their way to Hogwarts it probably evened out in the end.

To top it off, Oakland Airport is currently going through some construction. Usually there are taxi lanes and arrival lanes and departure lanes. On this particularly full evening, there was only one lane for all of this traffic.

After something like 15 hours of travel, I ended up getting to bed around 3:30 that evening or exactly the same time that I had left my bed to catch my flight to Maui one week before.

The plane flights themselves were okay. Little J was a trooper and didn't cry much and seemed to have no ear problems with the altitude changes. However, I did get covered from head to toe in a pretty think layer of baby spit as she sat in my lap. Also had one really nasty poo diaper on the plane. We bought a fully clothed baby to the lavatory in back and went back to our seats with a baby wearing nothing but a diaper. The clothes might have been salvageable if we were at home, but not on the road. Besides, she was growing out of them anyway.