The Last Mileage Run of 2016 Part 7: Early Returns

Three Boarding Passes at once- Bingo?

How did we get to here?

Part 1- Famous Last Words

Part 2- So...Yeah...Um...

Part 3- Miami Elemental

Parts 4 and 5- Over and Out

Part 6- So..Quito...

There’s nothing like an airport in the morning- full of possibility, adventure….and well, fake smiling at customs agents and sitting in plastic chairs.  Bright and early to catch the morning flight out of UIO back up to MIA.  So long, Quito, it’s been real (short).  Overall, I still am thinking this is a good mileage run city.  It hasn’t done anything to offend me just yet, unless you count the 45min ride from the airport into town.  That I could do without.  But if you’re only in town for a night, there’s a Wyhndam right at the airport that looks vaguely like something that touched down in Area 51.  So, you know, there are options.  There also seem to be some smaller hotel/guest house in the region if you feel like going ‘off brand’ (the horror).

As was the case yesterday, the views from the UIO-MIA flight are definitely worth writing home about.  The flight path starts climbing out of the valley, past mountains, crater lakes, and glaciers, then heads north for a view of the Panama Canal, before making the MIA southern approach over the keys.  It definitely makes that 5am wake up time closer to worth it, I keep telling myself with increasing ferocity.

 

On another but pertinent topic, I have a theory about these crazy trips that at some point in each one you must necessarily hit “the wall.”  It can be to varying degrees, but it always happens.  It’s that moment where you are forced to reflect with a sense of dread upon the life choices that have brought you this far.  'The Wall' this time around probably set in about the time I paid the taxi driver and headed back into the UIO airport at 6am local time...3am at home.

Staying on your home timezone is all well and good, but when you also have an early morning to go with the late night your jetlag requires, it all starts to catch up with you.  Plus, the hotel restaurant was a sushi bar...in Quito... and I just had to experience it.

A great way to get past 'The Wall' - Upgraded 767 lie flat seats.

The good thing is that once you get past 'The Wall,' the euphoria (or oxygen deprivation) of hitting 30,000 feet comes back, and all is well again.  It helps of course if your plane is comfortable enough for a nap, which due to AA's recent upgrading of their older 767s, it definitely was.  Once I could drag myself away from the sights out the window, I slept off the early morning until descent into MIA.

I could seriously fly this flightplan every day. 

3 down, 2 to go....

~CruisingAltitude