Cow Report #8

A Springtime Visit to Los Angeles

April 18 - 25, 2006

Day 1 — Departure

Well, folks, I think it's going to be awfully hard to count cows from 34,000 feet, but I'll give it my best shot!

I hadn't really planned for this trip. Instead, I was hoping to take the week of my birthday away from the office, staying up late, sleeping in, maybe taking a few day trips looking for photo opportunities. But my dad has been diagnosed with some serious medical problems, so a change in plans definitely seemed appropriate! So, here I am, winging my way west for my first visit to Los angeles in almost 2 1/2 years!

Just a few years ago I might have hopped into the truck and driven to LA, but that trip is getting old. 3 days each way, plus time in LA, is more time than I can really afford right now. I have done that trip in two days, driving 700 miles per day, but that's a very rough drive. And while my truck hasn't ever given me serious problems, it does have over 113,000 miles on it. I'm not ready to deal with the first major breakdown on I-40 somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Arizona. So I took wings for this trip!

Which began at about 4:30pm on a Frontier Express flight from Tulsa. This is my first flight on a "Regional Jet" (a Bombardier CRJ700, to be specific). These are the little baby jetliners that are popular on short, thinly-traveled routes. Nice thing about the CRJ: no aisle seats! Each row has two seats on the left and two on the right. As we pulled away from the gate, our passenger load was so light that everyone got a seat row to themselves.

From Tulsa, the CRJ700 took about an hour and a half to get us to Denver. From there, I changed to a Frontier A319, the smallest jetliner in Airbus' stable. This plane did have aisle seats, and a much bigger crowd. In fact, I think it was full. But I was lucky and got a window seat in an exit row. (Seat 7A for those who are counting!) The flight took us over the Rockies, which reminded me of one of the few things about Southern California that I do miss: mountains! Back in Tulsa, I don't think we even have self-respecting hills. Oh, Green Country has lush, rolling terrain, but I think that Cityplex Towers in South Tulsa (part of Oral Robert's empire) or the Williams Building in downtown might be taller than any of the surrounding hills!

Somewhere along the western edge of the Rockies, I made an amazing discovery! Frontier's A319s are equipped with in-flight TV; each seatback has a small LCD screen. For five dollars you can get something like 24 channels of DirecTV, or for eight dollars you can get a movie. There's also a free channel, which I didn't seem very exciting. What did catch my eye was the channel that was displayed on my seatmate's screen. It was displaying a real-time map, showing our position, airspeed and altitude (left)! I was fascinated, so I found the controls to my screen and tuned to the same channel. This is very slick technology, folks; given a choice of airlines, I'd fly Frontier just for this!

By the way, my seatmate was a very nice young lady from Denver. She was going to LA for a brief business trip, but had taken this particular flight because it would get into LA early enough for her to have dinner with a friend. We had talked photography a bit, and i wish I'd made an effort to get to know her a little better.

Further west, our flight crossed just north of the Grand Canyon. The weather conditions were very hazy, and I was shooting through several layers of plastic, not optical glass. But the picture on the right is worth a note. (Click on the picture to get a larger image.) At the bottom of the photo you see the south rim of the Grand Canyon. At the top of the photo, in the far background, is the snow-capped peak of San Francisco Mountain, the tallest mountain in Arizona. This is the first time I've seen the north face of the mountain. In the past, Flagstaff has been one of my overnight points when driving between Tulsa and LA. But Flagstaff is located on the south side of the mountain!

A bit later, around 6:43pm Pacific Time, we started our descent, somewhere in the general vicinity of Barstow, California. At that point we were flying at just under 39,000 feet. Seven minutes later we were down to 21, 000 feet. That's a descent rate of about 2,500 feet per minute, which seems pretty good to me!

Before long we were on the ground. After collecting my checked bag, catching the Thrifty shuttle bus (gotta support the local businesses in Tulsa!) to get my rental car, I was on my way to some dinner. At 8:43, with a contented feeling of "ahh! finally, some real food!" I'm sitting in front of a Double-Double with cheese and a vanilla shake. I hope Ruth & Tammy(my Tuesday and Wednesday evening Weight Watcher leaders, respectively) won't be too shocked, but it has been 2 1/2 years since this last indulgence.

I could write an essay on In-N-Out, but I'll save that for a later time. For now, let me say that we certainly have fast-food burger joints in Tulsa, but nothing like In-N-Out! (OK, maybe Fudrucker's is just as good, but I'm not sure it fully qualifies as a "fast-food burger joint"; Fudrucker's does seem a bit more upscale!) In-N-Out doesn't have much of a menu: hamburger, cheeseburger and the Double-Double. You can also get fries, shakes and sodas. And that's about it!

But those fries! Oh, those fries!!! In-N-Out uses fresh potatoes, which are sliced up and fried while you wait. No frozen, pre-cut fries shipped from some warehouse in Idaho. We're talkin' FRESH. Funny thing, though: when you start eating the first couple of fries, they seem kind of bland. But you start eating a few more, then a few more after that and before long you can't stop!

Burgers and fries weren't the only reason for my feeling of satisfaction and contentment, though.

After picking up the rental car, I couldn't resist driving through Westchester, the little section of the City of Los Angeles where I lived for 23 years. Downtown Westchester hasn't changed much at all. The Ralph's grocery store is still there, so is my Bank of America. I spotted the Depot and the formalwear shop where I've rented tuxedos from time to time. There's a Panera Bread, which is new since my last visit (and an addition that I heartily approve of!).

But heading north from the business district, my trepidation grows as I near the apartment complex where I lived for all those years.

To be continued... (I need to get some sleep now!)