TheFlyingDoctor

The (Successful!) Plan:
20:05 Plane: American Airlines AA1960 SFO-LAX (due 21:25) 2-class 737-800. Seat 5A (First class, window).
Earnt 875 avios, 60 tier points.

The next phase of the trip will be rather poorly documented, for reasons that will become clear... I was once again up at Early O'Clock, with a view to packing in some more sightseeing activities during my last day here in San Francisco. However, shortly after breakfast I find myself experiencing uncontrollable tremors and wild fluctuations in temperature perception, plus a general notion that breakfast might have been a mistake. With retrospect it seems I merely picked up the unusually strong flu that was afflicting the US this winter. But with other fears in my mind (thanks to pre-trip dental woes), I made the executive decision to skip the tourism and to take it as easy as possible at the hotel until check-out time, at which stage I would convey myself (horrendously early) to the airport.

Fortunately I was able to fortify myself with a combination of painkillers and powerful anti-nausea medication; I carry both in a form that dissolves in the mouth, no need to swallow. That's extremely handy when travelling, but I haven't been able to find such 'meltlets' or buccal tablets in US pharmacies, so I'm glad I had stashed some in my luggage. Once both of these have had the time to kick in, I actually felt well enough to be in two minds about my hastily revised schedule, and at checkout pondered leaving my case to hit at least one more attraction. But I stuck to the safe option, and by the time I'd stumbled my way to the BART station, it was entirely clear that getting to SFO, let alone LAX, would be more than enough of a challenge for the day.

At the station I need to add $6.50 to my card to cover the fare, but as I'm figuring out the machine, a young man approaches me to offer a $10 ticket for $5. Although I've gifted on such items for free myself on many occasions – and even bemoaned the difficulty of giving one away to suspicious travellers – I find my scam senses tingling. Wondering if I'm about to be rushed for my wallet when I reach for the $5, or will simply be paying for a useless fake, I nonetheless decide to place my faith in humanity and make the gamble. The transaction goes ahead without incident, and he even offers to come with me to the barriers to prove it'll work. Which it does (I declined the escort), but I can't help the niggling sensation that one of my kidneys is going to turn up on ebay or something. I can only assume that he was in such a pressing situation that $5, right now, was of more use to him than $10 of transport credit.

The anti-nausea meds get me through the journey, which delivers me to the international terminal, so I must have been on a different line to my outbound service. It's a short hop to my desired Terminal 2, where I am a full 7.5 hours early... but flying first class means I am allowed to bag drop anyway. Security is mercifully swift, and then it's just a case of finding as comfortable a seat as possible to ride out the shakes, in the hope that if I deteriorate substantially then an airport is a good place to be noticed and get medical attention. Since I couldn't focus on anything to read, and eating seemed entirely out of the question, I spent the afternoon with eyes screwed shut, trying to ride out the fever and shakes; by the evening I've added regular trips to the bathroom to dry heave, and a massive amount of self-pity, to the symptom list.

Pathetically, I had worked out that -due to an unexpected 20 instead of 10 tier points on the SAN-LAX leg – I'll hit my status target even if I have to lay low in Los Angeles for a few more days than planned, and then take alternative transport down to San Diego- provided I complete this sector in first. And although I have excellent travel insurance, I was in no mood to have to book extra accommodation in San Francisco, or take a hit on the LA reservations. So I really wanted to make this flight! Careful scheduling of my pharmaceutical weapons did see me through and onto AA1960, which I complete in the same “eyes closed, cling on for dear life” fashion and thus can offer no fair opinion on.

Ultimately, I got where I wanted to go without incident, and at this point in proceedings, that's all I needed. Forty minutes for baggage reclaim did not help, but was balanced somewhat by not having to head into LA proper for a hotel, as I was staying at the LAX Hilton. Shuttle bus took longer to load than to complete the journey: I consider myself unusually burdened with my 18kg suitcase, but I can still casually one-hand that into a luggage rack; a family of five turned up with no less than eleven cases – and a backpack each! On inspecting their bag tags, they had dragged all this from Australia – I can think of no faster way to make travel a miserable experience than to turn every location change into an episode of the world's strongest man.

As you've probably guessed, I've little to report (and no photos) from the hotel room either. It was small, the view wasn't worth opening the curtains for, and I didn't care in the slightest: there was a bed, and I was heading straight for it.

Hotel 4: Hilton Los Angeles Airport (1 night)
1166 Hhonors points, plus 500 avios.