First Stop: Steps from the Airport

[canyonwalker]

North Cascades Travelog #2
GEG Airport - Sat, 2 Sep 2023, 8am.

Some people begin trips by driving to the airport at night, staying over at a hotel, and flying out first thing in the morning. We turned that upside down by driving to the airport yesterday, flying to Spokane, and then staying over at a hotel. Yes, come Saturday morning we're still at the airport.



We're not in the airport, mind you, but at it. We've stayed in an airport before. Not Recommended. Here we're in a Marriott Springhill Suites that's across the street from baggage claim and the car rental desks. The photo above is the view from our window this morning after dawn. Fortunately Spokane is a small enough airport that there weren't flights taking off and landing all night.

Oh, and last night's flight?



Thirty minutes late. 🤣

But, hey, that was almost a benefit. Southwest marked the delay hours in advance, so we didn't sweat the traffic as much getting to the airport. And once at the airport (traffic was less bad than it could have been) we had time to eat some supper in the terminal without having to wolf it down. And since we were only driving... *looks out window again*... about 100 feet last night, getting in 30 minutes late wasn't much of an inconvenience. 🤣

Comments

[ckd]

I'm a fan of the "arrive late, sleep nearby, then get going" process when the timing is right; my current trip started with the same approach because it drastically simplified the logistics.

We were headed to Jacksonville, NC, but OAJ has extremely limited service; RDU is only a 2-2.5 hour drive, and had far better flight options for each of the three of us converging on it (nonstops from both BOS and SEA, though my dad decided to connect via ATL rather than take one of the DCA nonstops).

Since my flight was scheduled to get in at almost midnight (and turned out to be late) while the others arrived over the preceding few hours, it seemed most practical to book an airport hotel and meet up there. L and I each took the hotel shuttle while my dad picked up the rental car when he arrived; we could then get dressed up and packed that morning without too much time pressure and drive straight to the funeral home.

[canyonwalker]

I've done the "fly in late and then drive 1.5 - 2.5 hours" thing too many times. Sometimes it winds up being the most convenient or cost effective, but it's still not fun.

Speaking of convenient and cost effective, I'm surprised by your dad's choice to take a connecting flight on DCA-RDU instead of driving. The door-to-door time on the connecting flight is almost certainly worse than the ~4.5 hour drive time, and he needed a car at the other end anyway. ...Speaking as someone who has done that route countless times and virtually always driven it.

[ckd]

I was surprised as well. My guess is that he thought the time saved by flying the non-stop on the next leg (all three of us were going to DCA with L and I returning home from there later) combined with the drive down needing to be done solo made it better to spend time in a Sky Club rather than on the interstate, but under the circumstances (unexpected trip after the second recent family loss) I'm not going to do any min-max second guessing when the essentials were covered.

[canyonwalker]

Delayed reply, but I wanted to clarify I didn't mean to seem nit-picky about a person who's managing through the loss of a family member. While it's reasonable to presume people usually want to "solve for time" by choosing the most expedient form of travel within budget, I get that that's not everyone's priority. For example, when my dad's uncle died I flew there on a 1h10m flight while he drove 10 hours each way. He wasn't in the headspace to deal with the TSA security check (he considered it an indignity) or the hurry-wait-hurry-wait gantlet of flying.