They left the lights on for us ...

Everyone knows the Motel 6 commercials, with the requisite cheesy music and the droopy voice of Tom Bodett reminding us that the cut-rate but quality hotel chain will “leave the light on for ya.’’ Last night/this morning, we found this to be true after a long day of travel woes en route to USATF Juniors in Oregon. We are here at the Motel 6 in West Springfield/Eugene, where we have stayed our other two times out in TrackTown USA. We love it here. But it took a long time to get here.

Listen. I know air travel can be a pain and travel difficulties are part of the deal in this day and age of, well, travel difficulties. Fortunately, while it is a blessing for our athletes to earn trips to big-time meets requiring air travel, it is not a frequent occurrence. So our woes from yesterday are not something we have to experience too often. The combination of being the day before a holiday and severe weather in other parts of the country led to our Delta plane idling on the runway at JFK for close to two hours. That may not sound like much time. But, it is. In an extreme rarity for me, I texted my wife Heidi to tell her that I was uncomfortably hot (the plane’s AC does not work when the engines are not running full throttle, so it was cramped and steamy in there, even for someone like me who is always cold) and I was already tired of reading (I had just finished the New York Times cover to cover and we had gone exactly zero miles; usually, I can read all day, but under these circumstances, not so much).

Anyway, when we finally made our way through the tangle of stranded planes and into the air, we were way behind schedule. And we had a connecting flight to make from Portland to Eugene. Here we go again. Travelwoes at USATF … we’ve been down this road before. The flight was long and cramped. We are used to flying Jet Blue, with comfortable leg room and amenities. Delta had neither. That, coupled with the fact I was sitting next to a young couple who apparently smuggled in about a dozen cans of beer, which they were intent on drinking while lovingly groping each other … and yeah, it was a long flight.

When we touched the ground at Portland, we had exactly 11 minutes to make the connecting flight. Since I was sitting in the back of the plane and Coach Chuck was sitting toward the front of the plane, he told me he would make a run for the gate to the other flight in an attempt for us to make it. This was a good plan, since: a. Chuck is a much faster runner than me and b. he checked his bag so he was traveling lighter than me, as I carried on my luggage and c. I don’t walk/run all that fast (oh wait, we already covered that …). Chuck sprinted through two terminals at warp speed, nearly flooring an old lady in the process, but it was to no avail; they shut the door to the plane just as he arrived, and we were stuck with a 130-mile drive to Eugene instead of a 25-minute flight. Fortunately for us, the rental car was in Chuck’s name and not mine. Just as he is as a runner, Chuck is a much faster driver than me (insert the Pete drives like an Old Man joke here …). So, we zoomed our way down I-5, got to the Eugene Airport just before it closed to get the bags that were checked and arrived there without us, and then checked into the Motel 6 – where, yes indeed, the light was on – at about 1 a.m. Pacific time. For those keeping score at home, that’s 4 a.m. Eastern time. And that’s a long day of travel.

Again: Travel woes are all too common, so our tale of woe is nothing too earth shattering. It happens. We are here. We have time to get settled today before our athletes compete over the weekend. As mentioned earlier, we start the meet and we finish the meet. Kristi Licursi competes in the first event, the women’s 10,000-meter racewalk, at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Spencer Johnson competes in the last event, the men’s 10,000-meter run, at 6:45 p.m. Sunday. We return to New York on Monday morning, with our flight out of Eugene departing very early (5:10 a.m. local time). Here’s hoping we make all the flights on the return trip without any fast driving or frantic airport sprinting.