Sacramento Airport and stuff…

I’m going to write a blog post now.

I had to sleep in the airport overnight which never turns out well. So now I feel like pulling these words out of my brain and stringing them into coherent sentences is an accomplishment all its own. Unfortunately for me, the blogosphere is a little more complex than that and I have to be witty or hilarious or something. So good luck me!

I flew in yesterday from Hawaii and arrived in Sacramento around 10:30pm. The flight went well. I had the same flight attendant that I had on the way to Hawaii, which was fun. When he smiles or talks to you, you feel like the sun is shining directly out of his face and you’re soaking up all the vitamin D. I made sure to compliment him on his microwaving abilities. My chicken was warmed to perfection.

We had an inflight movie called ‘The Mavericks’ which was about Jay Moriarity (awesome last name, I know) and how he became an amazing surfer. I might have teared up towards the end while feeling suddenly inspired to conquer the world. Does anyone else get overly emotional or zealous on planes? I think it’s the feeling of a near death experience every time we hit some turbulence that makes me feel the need to make some awesome plan for my life if I survive the flight. Five hours later we landed in Sacramento and immediately people started to complain about how cold it was. The 45 degree air was just to chilly for these sunburnt tourists. Inwardly I rejoiced.

At the baggage claim everyone swarmed on one end where the luggage comes out, craning their red necks to see which black suitcase is theirs. I meandered over to the other side to wait, and luckily my pack was easy enough to spot. Orange, dirty, large, not a suitcase. It wasn’t until I hoisted it up onto my shoulders did I realize that it so perfectly dug into my sunburn causing searing pain and certain death. That was lovely.

Once I had my pack it was time to claim my lair. Airports are horrible places to sleep, but I must say that Sacramento is by far the easiest place to lounge in relative comfort. They have cushioned benches in a quiet area that do not, I repeat, do not have arm rests! I thought it was a rule for airports to have a ridiculous amount of armrests on all of their sitting devices in order to keep everyone perfectly separated and uncomfortable. For some reason there were a lot of people in this area waiting for their people come in so I had to mill about and sit and wait until slowly, one by one, everyone left.

Silence is a beautiful thing. I had about five seconds of it before they started cleaning and polishing the floors. The guy had ones of those ones you can ride around on and it goes pretty fast. For some reason my corner needed to be gone over about ten times before it was perfect in this guys eyes. I may not have had my eyeballs in (by that I mean my glasses or contacts, I am blind) but I could have sworn I saw him laughing at me, knowing he was inflicting some kind of torture.

Finally he went away. And I slept with my hand protectively draped over my backpack. For an hour. At which point I woke up again to the lights brightening and people walking around like this was a normal time to be awake. I can tell you, 4am is not a normal time to be awake. The next few hours after that are kind of a blur of groggy, pointless movements.

I went in search of sustenance, again hoisting my pack on my sunburnt shoulders, more carefully this time, with my smaller back pack on backwards like a pregnant belly. I had a “breakfast burrito” at the restaurant that wasn’t the bar (although I was tempted to use the “jet lag” excuse). I barely gagged that slimy mess down. Then I sat and tried my best to ignore the guy with the sunglasses that was faced directly toward me. Not in the mood for socializing this morning. But to my horror he was. He awkwardly ambled over and stood next to me for a good 3 seconds before I realized someone was there… staring at me and startled the crap out of me. He had to be in his 40s with piercing blue eyes and a teddy bear sort of build. He asked the usual creepy questions; are you traveling alone? Is that your pack? Do you do a lot of hiking? Did you ever hike the PCT? Are those hiking boots? Okay the last few are not that creepy. Then as quickly as he appeared he darted away as if he just realized he was late for his flight.

I bought glasses online. I don’t know why. They were cheap.

My friend is not going to be here till 9pm. I’ve been listening to random podcasts, stalking people on facebook, writing unnecessary emails, people watching. Lugging everything to bathroom every time I have to pee. And now I am writing a blog post. But I still have 5 more hours to go. My butt print is permanently and perfectly molded into this seat cushion. Airport employees are starting to give me weird looks. My eyes are probably blood shot from all this dry air that keeps blowing into them. And I cannot stop day dreaming about getting back into the woods and mountains. Back to real silence, away from all these people.

5 more hours and counting. Surviving with my sanity is proving to be difficult.

I have to pee.