“American Oceania”
9/1/17, “Past, Present, and
Future”
John F. Kennedy International
Airport, New York
This trip is about my past, my
present, and my future, in many ways.
Every time I walk through this concourse, the familiar B Concourse at
JFK Terminal 4, I think about the past, the present, and the future. I think about the past as I recall all the
great adventures that began in this same concourse. I think about the present as I prepare to
embark on another great adventure. I
think about the future as I look at all the cities listed on the gates and
think where I want to go next.
However,
this trip more than the others is truly about the past, present, and
future. It is about the past, not only
because it represents the culmination of my five-year mission, but also because
the moment I take my ceremonial picture at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park will
represent the fulfillment of a pledge I made 18 years ago when I first visited
Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I
would see them all, each and every World Heritage Site in our country, but I
went further.
I set out to see the world
on a five-year mission, to go to every continent, to visit all the Wonders of the
World, to set foot inside each and every Olympic Stadium, and among others, the hardest one of all, to see
each and every World Heritage Site in North America. That last one seemed impossible, but I did
it, and this trip will be where I at last complete the Seventeen Goals that I
have been attempting to complete lo these past five years. That begs a perfectly reasonable
question. What does my future hold? I honestly don’t know.
I have mapped out a similar chart for my 30s
as this five-year mission and set new goals to be considered to attempt by the
time I turn 40, but those are only tentative goals. I do not have a single plane ticket past this
trip. Nothing is certain about my
future, but, by the time this trip is over, I fully expect to see my future as
clearly as I see my past and present.
Now, as for my immediate past, as my readers know, any proper trip
begins with the recounting of Night -1, pizza night with the K-Man, but no
movie tonight, both because there was nothing out I wanted to see and because I
needed the time to get ready for my trip.
I left the office around 6:30 PM, well behind schedule, and we pushed
dinner back until 7 PM. I had to first
pick up my new travelling suit from Brooks Brothers, and then I biked down to
meet the K-Man before we headed to a new spot, Vezzo, which specializes in thin
crust pizza.
I got a glass of wine and
he got a beer. We also got an appetizer
that was lackluster. Then came the
pizzas. We got two small pizzas to share,
each picking one. I chose the mushroom
pizza adding bacon and onions, he chose the meat lover’s adding pepper and
onions. I’ve been to Italy, so I can’t
say that it was the best pizza I’ve ever had, but I can say that it was the
best pizza I ever had in Manhattan. The
K-Man agreed, and we instantly agreed that this was going to be our new regular
spot.
In case my reader doesn’t
understand how momentous of a thing that was for us to decide and to do it
without debate, allow me to explain. For
as long as we’ve been hanging out on a regular basis, CPK has been our default
spot. If one of his wants to suggest
another place, we need to make a rational argument for why it would be better
than going to CPK. Last night, we both
acknowledged that the pizza we had was so special that not only would it
replace CPK as the default spot, but that there was not even any need to debate
that decision. That’s how good it
was. The K-Man ordered a second mushroom
pizza for himself while I had a coffee.
We then picked my laundry and went back to my place so that we could
light our cigars. I lit up Gurkha Titan,
which was a large cigar, but not oversized.
This was around 8:30 PM. Reader,
remember that time. I changed into more
casual clothes, and we went for a walk, playing a game. Every time we came to a corner or crossed we
street, we would, in alternate turns, call out “left,” “right,” or
“straight.” We walked this way for about
30 minutes before heading back to my apartment and our goodbyes in the usual
manner at the usual spot.
I then went
back to my apartment, it now being around 9:30 PM, and got straight to work
packing. First I did my suitcase, with
all my clothes, followed by the tobacco.
My reader will understand that packing 16-day supply of cigars and pipes
is no easy task.
Then, it was time to
pack my computer bag, and I retrieved my blue Mead Five-Star WHS folder, the
one I had been carrying around the country for 20 years, in the now-torn Target
bag that I have been using for five years.
I would replace the bag, but the folder would live on. I started to ask it if it was ready for one
last adventure together. “You have
served me well” was all I managed to get out before I broke down in tears. It hit me all at once, the significance of
this trip, the significance of the words I will utter at HVNP when I have
finally been to every WHS in the country.
Once I regained my composure, I put it in my computer bag and went to
work sorting through my photos for the collages I will be making to illustrate
the completion of each of my Seventeen Goals.
It was 11 PM now, and my Gurkha was nowhere near done. 11 PM became 1 AM, and the end of my task was
not in sight. 1 AM became 3 AM, and I was
mostly done, but the hardest task of all remained, sorting through photos of
all 109 WHS in North America, just as it was the hardest one of the Goals to
complete. I did the photos the same way
I did the visits: one site at a time. I
also started to realize how bizarre it was that my cigar had lasted over six
hours now.
Finally, at 5 AM, I was done,
leaving only Mexico, which I had imported to my laptop raw for future
sorting. I would be lucky to get two
full REM cycles. I was so revved up from
the six hours I spent sorting photos that it was another hour before I got to
sleep. I caught one full REM cycle and
woke up again around 7:30 AM. I don’t
think I fell asleep again before my alarm went off a little past 8 AM. I got ready, excited to wear my new suit for
the first time now, and dropped off a package before heading to the
office.
It was a slow and quiet day, and
I was able to do everything I needed to do to get ready for my trip, along with
clearing out my inbox and getting out everything that I needed to get out, leaving
an almost-clean slate for my teammate when he comes back on Tuesday in my
absence, eating my usual pre-departure lunch from Hop Won at my desk to save time. Right at 3:30 PM, which was our
scheduled dismissal, I was done, and my car was waiting for my downstairs. All the stress I had felt all week instantly
evaporated the moment I sat down in that car.
The traffic to the airport wasn’t any worse than usual, and I took care
of a few last-minute things as we drove.
When I got to the airport, even with Sky Priority, there was a long
wait, and I took the opportunity to call my contact at NOAA, who was supposed
to arrange for me to see the Plaque but hadn’t responded to my confirmation
requests. He picked up, and told me that
everything was being done, and there was nothing to worry about. I felt even more relieved.
I then saw two women running up asking to cut
the line because their flight was boarding.
They stopped right behind me.
After we went through security, I knew they were so flustered that it
was 50/50 they were going to forget their rolling suitcases. I kept an eye on their suitcases and on
them. Sure enough, one started to run
off without her suitcase, but her friend remembered, so they retrieved the
suitcases. I was prepared to stop them
if they both ran off. I got a fiber bar
and was then at the B Concourse.
All the
memories came back of all the times I have flown out of this concourse. I saw planes that would go to Belgrade and
Lisbon and Riyadh. I thought about all
of those places, Lisbon and Riyadh holding the most sway. I saw a Singapore Airlines jet, which
confused me, since I knew there are no direct flights to Singapore from New
York, but I will go soon. They just got
a new WHS, and it is a region I have never visited. I then got to my gate where I sat down and
proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as we will soon be boarding.
Burlingame, California
I am recently arrived at SFO for
my overnight layover before I continue to Hawaii. In a little over 12 hours, I will be marking
Hawaii as my 50th State, the highest and most primary of all 17
Goals. While visiting all US WHS is a
goal that I set for myself decades ago, visiting all 50 States was never even a
goal. It was just something I knew I
would do one day, it only being a matter of when. The when is tomorrow. As for now, I am watching planes take off and
touch down at SFO, just a little up the bay from where I am sitting. It looks close enough to be an easy walk, but
they offer a free shuttle, so that’s even better
I don’t have much new to
report, other than my enjoyable flight from JFK to SFO. By booking my tickets early for this trip, I
was able to secure business class tickets on most of my long haul flights at unbelievable
prices. Delta treats JFK-SFO as an
international flight for the most part, it showed in how they presented
business class. My seat converted to a
bed, and it had a foot rest and cubby for added comfort and convenience. I knew that I would sleep better on this
flight than I did in bed last night, and I would get more hours of shuteye than
I did last night, as well. I needed
it.
I was starving when they took my
drink order, so I made an order that would make my father proud. I ordered a Bombay Sapphire Gin and asked for
some nuts on the side. It was the perfect
combination. I rested my eyes a bit
before they served dinner. The nuts had
actually filled me up, but I knew I would be hungry later if I didn’t eat the
meal being offered, and it was quite an offering.
They had whole grain bread with the
appetizer, which was shrimp salad with salmon roe, followed by a steak topped
in crawfish. I ate every bite of
protein, along with more gin and soda.
It was quite a meal. Then came
dessert, and I knew I didn’t need it, but I had a hard time turning down salted
caramel ice cream.
Usually, I would have
a cigar or coffee after a rich meal, but neither was a viable option right
then, so I told myself I would just have a few bites of ice cream to cleanse my
pallet. I thought I would eat the whole
thing, but I was actually stuffed halfway through and told him to take it
away. I then lowered my seat to about 30
degrees above vertical, low enough to sleep comfortably but elevated enough to
avoid any reflux issues from going to bed right after a heavy meal. It worked like a charm, and, next thing I
knew, after two full REM cycles, we were making our descent into SFO.
I just had a thought, completely irrelevant
to my current point in the story. It is
now close to midnight local time, and I am not going to finish this cigar
before my entry is published. On the
other hand, I need to be at the airport around 9 AM tomorrow, and I will want
to have a cigar after breakfast but will not want to take the time for a full
cigar. I should just hide the cigar out
here after I publish and retrieve it in the morning. That would work perfectly.
Okay, back to my story. Getting to my hotel was a breeze. It was an easy walk to the hotel shuttle
pick-up point, and my shuttle came very quickly. We were at the hotel before long, and I
checked in quickly and went to my room.
I then resituated myself and walked outside to the waterfront. I found a nice bunch in view of SFO, where I
sat down, lit up an Oliva, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now
close so that I can publish and get to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment