Getting Home from L.A.
Oct. 19th, 2021 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerWe wrapped up our weekend trip to Los Angeles Sunday afternoon at about 3:30pm. By "wrapped up" I mean that we were done with the all the L.A. specific stuff we wanted to do for the weekend. All that was left to do was get home. Unfortunately our flight out wasn't until 8:45pm, over 5 hours later. If we'd driven in our own car for the weekend we could've been most of the way home by then! This is why trips to L.A. always involve a fly-vs.-drive calculation.
For this trip I was glad, on the whole, we chose to fly. Even though we ultimately didn't get back to our house until almost 10:30pm, we probably wouldn't have done much better driving directly home from The Getty Museum at 3:45. The drive is about 5.5 hours straight through. With stops for food and gas, plus delays for traffic, it likely would have been 7 hours. But more important than the issue of which is faster was which was easier. Flying meant I only had to deal with some local driving around LA to get to the airport. Other than that I could veg out.
And "veg out" is about all I could do. BUR airport is a hovel. The terminal looks like something that was built 50 years ago on the cheap and barely updated. There's one restaurant that's open inside, and it's ridiculously expensive. Like, $20 for a burger and fries or a pizza, plus $5 for a Coke or $12 for a beer, expensive. What's all that money going to? It's certainly not improving the bare cinderblock walls, industrial carpeting, or ceilings with exposed pipes. Seriously, it's like my old high school. With $12 beer.
Another aspect of how cheap and old-timey BUR airport is is that there are no jet bridges. You board by walking out the door from the terminal, across the ground, to stairs or a ramp up to the aircraft hatch. It's just like a small airport in a developing country.
For this trip I was glad, on the whole, we chose to fly. Even though we ultimately didn't get back to our house until almost 10:30pm, we probably wouldn't have done much better driving directly home from The Getty Museum at 3:45. The drive is about 5.5 hours straight through. With stops for food and gas, plus delays for traffic, it likely would have been 7 hours. But more important than the issue of which is faster was which was easier. Flying meant I only had to deal with some local driving around LA to get to the airport. Other than that I could veg out.
And "veg out" is about all I could do. BUR airport is a hovel. The terminal looks like something that was built 50 years ago on the cheap and barely updated. There's one restaurant that's open inside, and it's ridiculously expensive. Like, $20 for a burger and fries or a pizza, plus $5 for a Coke or $12 for a beer, expensive. What's all that money going to? It's certainly not improving the bare cinderblock walls, industrial carpeting, or ceilings with exposed pipes. Seriously, it's like my old high school. With $12 beer.
Another aspect of how cheap and old-timey BUR airport is is that there are no jet bridges. You board by walking out the door from the terminal, across the ground, to stairs or a ramp up to the aircraft hatch. It's just like a small airport in a developing country.
