Trip to the Empire State — Friday Night

We recently scheduled a trip to visit Tim’s grandma Helen in upstate New York. This is the grandma who at age 85 had a pretty serious stroke last March. We’ve been wanting to visit ever since then, but they recommended that we wait a few months to give her time to recover.


Taking off from JFK International Airport. You can barely see it, but the Manhattan skyline is in the background. (11/05/05)

With me working now, I couldn’t take very many days off. So to maximize our time there, we took the redeye Friday night. For me, it was a night of firsts. First time taking the redeye. First time flying out of Long Beach airport. And first time ever taking JetBlue.

Our flight took us from Long Beach to New York’s JFK airport. Despite the really annoying diva in the window seat who kept needing to get in and out, the flight went really well and we managed to get some sleep.

At JFK, while we were transferring, I was relieved to see that two monks were on our flight. In my mind, that meant the flight was blessed. Although the flight from NYC to Buffalo was only an hour, it felt like five minutes since we slept the entire way (and for me to skip the free beverage and snack meant I was really sleepy).

When we finally landed in Buffalo, it was 8:30 a.m. Saturday and we were exhausted. I think our first time flying a redeye may also be our last.