A Full Moon and a String of Pearls

I hate to admit it, but I really do love business travel. I enjoy the fact that after 25 years of running around America and beyond, that there are cities outside my own where I am very comfortable navigating and getting around.  I love people and different environments. 

This week I visited northern Mexico to customer sites in Mexicali and elsewhere. That meant a four hour flight from Atlanta to San Diego then a 120 mile run out into the Imperial Valley desert of California.  I made the customer visit, then drove back to San Diego. Mexico is pretty easy to get into, but I didn't love the 90 minute wait to get back through US Customs and Border Protection.

I love the desert and the amazing mountainous rock formations that you have to go through on I-8 headed east through the desert toward El Centro. It's just different from what I am used to. It is  refreshing to me to get out of the office out where the business really lives.

This morning, after some other meetings, I drove from San Diego to LA. That is normally a gorgeous drive. Its not only the scenery, it's the adventure.  

This is wild fire season in Southern California.  I found that out today.   The trip from San Diego to LA is a beautiful run up the I-5 to the 405 of about 110 miles. Today, with the fire season in full swing, I spent 2 hours in Oceanside, California at a dead stop.   By the time I got past Camp Pendleton, I saw that they had the traffic stopped for a grass fire.  I'd never seen that before, but can appreciate the risk that these fires bring to peoples homes in southern California.

All that was cool, but here's what I loved.

We get a pretty good rate at one of the hotels near LAX. This particular hotel is on Century Boulevard. It is near LAX and our office.  That puts the hotel right on the flight path for the several parrallel runways of LAX.  

Being in the air freight business and a major transportation geek, I loved the fact that on one side of my hotel room, I had a ninth floor view of the LAX runways.   On the other side, I had a view of the inbound aircraft landing at LAX.  

LAX gets a wide variety of aircraft as well as international airlines.   I watched everything from A330's from Air Tahiti Nui to numerous 747's take off and land.   European flights take off in the early evening just as the FedEx heavies are landing.  Meanwhile Singapore Airlines and other freighters for Asia take off even later.  Moving heavy iron is a magical thing to me. Ships, heavy aircraft, rail engines and trucks are all just a big toy set to me.

As evening comes, inbound aircraft turn on landing lights.  The lights illuminate the separation of inbound aircraft.  Air Traffic Controllers call that line of inbound planes flying the ILS a "String of Pearls".  That's what it looks like too.  A beautiful line of lights perfectly formed up over a 12 mile approach.   

Tonight, rising to the east of Los Angeles was a full moon. That moon, turned orange by the smog of the city, made a perfect backdrop to the orchestration of commercial aviation.  I sat in the room tonight and just enjoyed the beauty of the business I am in.

Call me a geek, but I love the transportation business.  I used to get the same buzz watching 1000 foot container ships maneuver in Oakland or San Pedro.

Eric

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Comments

[Eric]

Yep Im a transportation geek. :-)

Nice to see you here Stuart.

Eric

[Stuart]

GEEK!

Seriously, watching RMGs unload a ship, a dozen straddle carriers move containers from the dock to the yard, sirens screeching away, and drayers hauling boxes to the gate, is a mezmerizing experience.

Stuart