On the heels of a six-hour flight from Portland, I was back on the plane for another six-hour flight.  This double cross-country flight combination would have allowed a good amount of sleep if as I mentioned in the last post I was successful at sleeping on planes.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with T5.  There is free WiFi, but there isn’t a spot that’s clearly for AYCJ passengers.  It seemed like there are a lot of gates and the walk with 39 pounds of my overloaded mobile closet is almost as difficult as walking in Long Beach downtown!

On flight deck of flight #353, Roy and Edward got us across the country in what seemed like an eternity, but that could be attributed to being disoriented by the daylight when the last redeye was at night.

Off to the east coast after bouncing around the west coast. On this first red-eye flight of the trip, named Out of the Blue, I was hoping to…

The first state capitol on this trip was the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. It was very quiet as the House and Senate are not in session. They still offered a tour up 121 steps to the observation level. Beware, you will get winded as there is no elevator from the 4th floor. It was clear enough to see most of the city thanks to the weather!

Colleen and Curt were the JetBlue flight attendants for flight #1426 up the west coast to Portland this afternoon on I Only Have Eyes for Blue. It again started out cloudy, but the magnificent Patrick flew up, up, and away, providing some great views of the mountains. If I had only known where I was, maybe I would have appreciated it more. It was definitely a change of pace from the compacted clouds this morning.

Long Beach Airport is rather small. I’ve flown into a few small airports in the United States, but for some reason I thought that this being a (mini-)hub for JetBlue, there would be more planes than just a few gates. I now understand why there was no kickoff party held here. The runway is the only large place in the airport that could hold a group of us.

The very short flight on #1431 from SFO to LGB on As Blue As It Gets was a great start to a very long month. Woody Haze piloted the plane…

Okay, it seemed like a great idea. Flying anywhere JetBlue flies for 30 days on the All You Can Jet pass. I mean, how hard could it be. Pick a spot, get on the plane, get off the plane. Rinse and repeat. For 30 days. Great idea!

I guess the fact of having the freedom to fly to over 60 different destinations, and the endless possibilities of what could be waiting at each destination overcame any practical common sense (at 3am, unable to sleep). I started off by scraping 425 flights off JetBlue’s timetable, departing on the 16th of September. Yeah, it took some time. It seemed like the perfect way of stringing flights together. That plan failed when I realized (late in the planning process) that some flights aren’t offered on Saturdays. Doh! Big time Doh! Leaving earlier than expected at 5:25pm on a Saturday night didn’t leave much time for sightseeing when you thought there was a late flight at night. Three hours can make a big difference.