This business of transitioning back to the real world has been rather more taxing than anticipated. Not that I have anything to complain about since most of the rest of the team are on a three day drive back to Toronto. Nevertheless, it’s been interesting. Here I am being dropped off at Reno airport by Danny. All smiles at this point since the worst I thought I had to deal with was a six hour wait for my flight.

Regrettably, my flight kept being pushed back due to a delay in inbound equipment. It become apparent that I would not catch my connection in SFO, and so I got on the horn with United to try to get onto a later redeye. Eventually it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to catch any redeye and that I would have to spend the night at SFO. I got booked onto the first flight out on Monday morning, and then I thought I was being clever by prebooking a room at an airport hotel. Getting off of the plane, I phoned the hotel, only to learn that the shuttle was not longer running (thanks La Quinta). At that point I went out to the curb to the taxi line, and was confronted by this:

But wait, isn’t this the land of rideshare apps? So I reluctantly opened Lyft and saw that the lowest fare was $170 which was about the hotel room rate, and this for a ride of less than a mile. An interesting case study in market dynamics, since the rise of Uber and Lyft probably killed off a lot of taxis…. So I ended up sleeping in the airport, something I haven’t done in a while. I occasionally woke up due to a slight ground tremor, but they all seemed to be heavy trucks going by, or perhaps the tram. Understand that I lived in the area during the Loma Prieta earthquake back in 1989.

BTW food here is more varied but quite expensive. These sandwiches fare poorly in comparison to the equivalent item from Port O Subs in Battle Mountain.

At any rate, the flight back was painless, and I am now sorting through ten days worth of work emails. The bike team is hiking in the Tetons on the way back to Toronto. I wish I had one tenth of their energy.
See you all next year.
Sept 22 update: the team is safely hope after their long drive.




