Wednesday
Travel day. Let the adventure begin!
Luci and I are out the door at 11:15, Buster is packed and we’re driving down the BQE. Luci asks me if I remembered to pack videotapes. Seemed like an obvious thing to pack for a trip to tape interviews. I forgot. We had to turn around, go back home, get the tapes and start over again. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t too bad.
LaGuardia’s long term parking was full (standard) so we proceeded to off-airport parking, this time armed with a “free day” coupon for air park. A nice attendant at the airport gave us this card with all the off-airport prices written down. Air park was the closest, but also the most expensive. By like $5 a day more. We went to the next lot, Clarion (1/2 mile) and saved over $50 for the trip.
We decided to bring our light kit to save having to rent one. We were a little worried that the measurements would be larger than allowed and they were going to charge us the $80 extra each way (still cheaper than the rental). As luck would have it, she didn’t measure it at all and passed it on through. She did, however, get me to lighten 7 lbs. out of our suitcase.
We began watching “The Bourne Identity” on the laptop, but the flight was so short, we barely got through the first act. For what it is (spy thriller done Hollywood style) it’s pretty good. We were expecting delays in Pittsburgh (the connection) going on to Chicago because of the weather. When we arrived, they had changed the gate and delayed it 3 times ˝ hour by ˝ hour until they finally cancelled. Luci and I took the opportunity to grab a bite of food and continue watching the movie. We got on the 6:35 flight to Chicago. They held us again out on the tarmac for about 45 minutes or so. We watched the third installment of the movie. We finally took off around 7:30 and were able to finally finish the film.
I can’t remember what time we landed in Chicago, but by the time we picked up the rental car, a very nice and very new Toyota Corolla and drove to the hotel it was 11:00. A 12-hour travel odyssey. We ordered pizza, Chicago style, delivered, watched a little TV and fell asleep. Although it was long, it went by all right.
We pick up the equipment tomorrow in Chicago and drive to Columbus, Ohio to interview David Darr.