I already knew late last month that I would be connecting through Boston on my flight from Long Beach to Richmond late Monday into Tuesday morning. As the day approached, I thought it was too bad I only had about an hour and 15 minutes to change planes; had it been four hours or so I might try to get pictures of the Massachusetts State House since I did not see it the last time I was in Boston in 2001.
Little did I know that when Christina took me to Long Beach Airport on Monday night that I would, in fact, get that four hour layover, and that approximately nine hours later I would be freezing my rear end off on the Boston Common.
It all started when the flight from Long Beach to Boston was delayed an hour because the crew was coming in on a delayed flight from San Francisco. This inconvenienced people who were headed to Dulles, since it was their plane, as well as the Boston-bound passengers. Our plane was sitting at the gate the whole time, but there was nobody to fly it or serve beer.
At first, the delay was only expected to be a half an hour, so the jetBlue people said I should still be able to make my connection to the 6:30 a.m. flight. I was offered an opportunity to rebook already at that point, but I figured there would be another flight to Richmond by lunchtime, and the lady said if I did not make the morning flight they would take care of me there.
We landed in Boston at 6:15 a.m., so things did not look so good. When the pilot was unable to find an open gate, that made things worse. When he finally got to a gate, the jetway was stuck (it WAS 9 degrees at the time) so that further delayed matters. Still, they were giving out gate information, and reassured the folks who were heading to Fort Lauderdale that their flight was being held, so I hoped I would be similarly lucky.
Getting to the gate was a bit of an ordeal of fast-walking with occasional bursts of speed, weighed down by a backpack that contained my laptop and Christmas presents and further encumbered by my camera bag. But I kept going, because if they held the Fort Lauderdale flight then maybe, just maybe, mine would still be there.
Obviously the story would end right there if the plane had not already begun taxiing toward the runway. In fact, the sign at the gate even gave "taxiing" as the flight's status. So there I stood, at 6:35 a.m., with no place to go for four hours. I called my Mom to tell her not to bother coming to the airport until 12:30 p.m. and then I thought about my next move. After all, I could probably go SOMEWHERE as long as I was back at the airport by 9 a.m..
Luckily, Christina and I discussed this possibility on Monday night, and she had enough time to look up some of the specifics before my flight left Long Beach. It was basically this: Take the free Silver Line bus from Logan Airport through the Ted Williams Tunnel to South Station, then take the Red Line two stops toward Alewich. It was then an 8-minute walk, according to the MTA, but as it turns out you can already see the statehouse when you exit the station on the Boston Common.
It had warmed up to 12 degrees and I had on clothes more appropriate for 40 or 50, but I gutted it out. I walked across the Common, got my photos of the statehouse (that's No. 33 on the list now), then took more photos of a live-shot Channel 25 was doing on the other side of the street.
Soon after that, I realized that "HEY IT'S 12 DEGREES," and maybe I need to get back on the T and return to the airport. I was probably outside for an hour in that temperature, but I seem no worse for the wear. I'm sure the feeling in my fingers will come back by they time I'm done with this blog post.
Back at the airport, the security lines were not too bad (at least by Logan's standards). They were bringing a couple of kegs through and one of the supervisors kiddingly asked the guy in front of me if they belonged to him. After they both chuckled, I said, "Actually, they're mine," and all three of us enjoyed the joke.
My new ticket said the flight was leaving from Gate 28, but when I walked past Gate 26 it had apparently been moved there. Five minutes later they decided we should go to Gate 33. JetBlue was nice enough to give me a voucher for breakfast or lunch, so I stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts stand for a sandwich, a doughnut and a coffee (eat your heart out, Los Angeles).
The flight to Richmond left about 20 minutes late, but was smooth. And it was great to see my mom again after nearly a year since my last trip home. But I was happy that I turned what could have been a distressing situation into a positive experience.
