It became that time of the year when the school year is over, and Dr.Steveo requires a vacation. Luckily United's new PDL service was up and running, and I saw a flight priced at $600. Soon a flight was booked, and we were spending a week on Sao Miguel Island. A few weeks before leaving Dr.SteveO finally caught Covid. After a few days of coughing, and feeling bad I caught it. A few days before leaving I took a covid test and I failed
Luckily I tried again the day before traveling using an online NAAT Test and I passed by the skin of my nose cells. With my last barier cleared we were on our way to PDL.
Up first was ORD-EWR on a 757-200. We boarded the flight, and the pilot is like "ughhhhh we need to sit on the tarmac for an hour.... and we are turning the engines off". We baked for an hour and enjoyed a nice sweat. Soon we were up, roaring towards Newark. As we got to Central Pa it was announced the flight would touch down a little late as we had no place to land, and did donuts over Pa. After another 30 minutes we were heading in, and landed at EWR.
After a few hours on the ground we were off to PDL. The flight leaves at 10:45 pm. Just like earlier we boarded the flight, and sat on the tarmac for an hour. After sweating.... a lot, we were on our way! The flight took only 4 1/2 which was nice, but we were riding the jet stream all the way. Every 30 minutes or so the Pilot announced "Flight Attendents, please be seated" as we bounced over the Atlantic. The sky finally calmed down, with the sun rising in the east, and I saw a peak out of the clouds! This was one of the western Azores, with Mount Pico in the distance, and I new I was in for a good trip!
Around 40 minutes later we touched down. No jet bridge here, just stairs and walking to customs. After about 10 seconds we were released to terrorize the island of Sao Miguel! Picking up the rental car took the startch out of my pants, but soon we were heading to explore the island!
Advice to Scott Kirby: Do a direct flight out of ORD. You know you want too..
Pico
Blowing My Mine