Stuck in Sacramento! (People are Basically Good)

(This was originally written January 10, 2007)

So Monday was Travel-to-Eureka/Mike Day. I had the longest layovers. The day was uneventful, just very long. Finally it was time to board my last flight, 9:02PM Sacramento to Eureka/Arcata airport. It was a little puddle jumper, not much bigger in actuality than a charter plane. I believe there were approximately 30-45 passengers on board, pretty much full.

I was sooooo tired, and only one hour from Mike. "Just get through this last little flight," I told myself. The flight attendants took their time getting us distributed evenly for fuel reasons. They rearranged people, and eventually they ran out of cargo space and started buckling people's suitcases into empty seats.

Finally, the plane took off. I dozed off, exhausted from the day's events. I woke up when the flight attendant said we were descending for a landing at Arcata. After about 15 minutes it became apparent that we were no longer descending, but also didn't seem to be going anywhere. We were going in circles. The pilot voice: "We are in a holding pattern. The fog is so thick down there that we cannot even see the runway. We will do our best to land here, folks, but if the fog doesn't move within the next 10 minutes, we are heading back to Sacramento."

If there was a time in my recent life that I prayed, I guess this would qualify as it. I wished to myself over and over and over again, "please let us land, please let us land please let us land please please please please, he's just right down there in his truck waiting for me. PLEASE, I just need to hug and see Mike." I repeated this over and over and over again in my head, with my eyes squeezed shut. I can't remember the last time I wished and hoped and "prayed" so hard for something in my life. I don't know who I was directing it to, but it doesn't seem anyone was listening.

Well the pilots circled the plane for another solid 10 minutes, and then decided we were going to run out of fuel if we did not head back to Sacramento. The fog was too thick. These guys make this shuttle run from Arcata to Sacramento twice daily. Fog is a way of life in Arcata. The crew knew their stuff. If they didn't feel right about it, it wasn't going to happen.
I bit back tears, and had I not been reading Off the Map, I would probably not have had any sense of adventure. I was just too tired, and missing Mike so much. But I tried to be optimistic about it. "This will definitely be a learning experience," I told myself.

So after two-and-a-half unneccessary hours in the air, we landed back in Sacramento. The airline rebooked us for various flights in the morning, and then we were completely on our own. Some people got hotel rooms. Other people were opting to hang out and try to sleep in the tiny Sacramento airport. Some of us didn't even get the direct flight the next morning. I was going through San Francisco, and would get to Arcata around 10:30 the next morning! 12.5 hours after I was originally supposed to arrive there. Two more hours on planes, and nearly eight more hours sitting in airports.

Fuck that.

There was this guy, a middle-aged, quirky-looking, seemingly nice gentleman who was on my plane, calling out for people who might be interested in a one-way car rental and a 5-6 hour drive to Arcata. I was on the phone to a sleepy, equally-sad Mike who seemed leery of the idea. I had been reading a book about two girls who backpacked and squatted their ways across Europe, with nary a penny. So I was in a trusting-humankind kind of mood. I hung up with a sleepily protesting Mike, promising to call him back. I called out to the man that I was interested, out of 30-some people on our plane there had to be others.

We rounded up four other folks, who all seemed hesitant, but we sold them on it, 'it is an adventure, an opportunity to know people we might not otherwise meet or know. We would get home around 5 or 6AM. It would only be about $20-$30 a person, and this ordeal could be over. We wouldn't be spending any more time in airports!'

So we shuttled to the side of the airport that had the car rental counters and split up to attack all the various rental companies at once. All of the other places were unavailable, and I called out from the Avis counter to my new cohorts "we've got a minivan over here for $130 one-way, plus tax and gas."

We had all managed to locate our checked luggage, so we loaded up our new means of transportation, made introductions, and climbed our haggard, travel-weary bodies into the van. Jeff, the college professor at HSU, was our first driver. Everyone was from Cali, all going home after holiday-related travel. They knew immediately from hearing my "accent" that I was from the mid-west.

There is no way I can give this experience justice by trying to explain what happened. The conversations that occured. The camaraderie. The bad jokes. We all came out of this less-than-ideal experience having exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, with promises to keep in touch. We left each other just a little bit richer than the night before. I've already got friends in California.

When Mike met us at 5:30AM at a gas station in Fortuna, California, my new friends quietly informed me that we were driving right by his place and could have dropped me off an hour later. He had gone out of his way to meet me and get to me sooner. "That's about as nice as it gets," my new HSU student friend Sam said. He was right.

So the circumstances my first night in Cali were less than ideal. I got to Mike six hours later than I was supposed to. But I was raised to believe that people were basically bad inside, that you can't trust them, that everyone is only looking out for their own best interest, and screw you.

But what occured in that van over the six-hour impromptu road trip, proved to me otherwise. That my parents are wrong. That people are not only basically good inside, but when you work together and have a common goal it can make for a downright amazing experience.
When I mentioned that I'm considering moving to northern Cali, my car companions had nothing but wonderful things to say about the people here. They said if I want a chance to heal, clear my head, and learn about myself free from judgment there is no better place.

Now Mike is "nagging" me (he totally is not a nagger) to run an errand with him. So I gotta jet, y'all. This place is a paradise. My Mike is my perfect man (glass artists have the patiences of a saint, seriously), and if I didn't have to, I wouldn't even go back. Until this morning, I didn't even have a return flight - United canceled it when I didn't show for my rebooked flight the next morning (good work, travel agent, I totally knew this, but my exhausted brain couldn't comprehend anything but going to sleep). Thankfully I went to the Arcata airport, and explained to them what happened. They immediately reinstated my return flights with no issue.

Love y'all. This is one happy girl!

OK so I just got this email from my new friend Sam, sent to all in the minivan Monday night/Tuesday morning. I think it's a nice testament:

"here's to long conversations in the dead of night. Jeff, did you make it tothe Gate pres? I was up at 10:00AM, too much energy drink, and i thought of you. Naomi, i hope you end up following what your heart tells you,regardless of the consequences. As Joseph Campbell said - Follow Your Bliss! Kevin and Dory, call me at xxx-xxxx if you guys want to double datesometime. And to the future firefighter, and the one with the best story,your dedication and perseverance serves as an excellent example to the rest of us. Thanks for finishing the deal Jeff, I'll see you on campus.Sam"

Cheers, y'all. It's Thursday morning in Cali and it is fucking cooooold! But the highs have been between 50-60 each day and Mike promises it will warm up today as well!

I'm out.