WESTWARD, HO! FEBRUARY 22, 2014.

We make an annual trek to SoCal around this time to visit our timeshare north of Escondido. Four years ago we took grandson Allen along with two purposes: to meet his great grandfather, Ray Jones, and to acclimate him to flying at an early age. Well, not so much the latter, although his father has little desire to strap himself into an airplane. Allen dubbed our timeshare condo “our California house,” and refers to it frequently in the never-ending quest to assert superiority over lesser beings, such as his brother. This naturally creates puer pressure on us to take Baron along some time, and next year will probably be the opportunity to take him along, before he’s shackled to a school desk.

Our planning started in the fall, as Paula started combing the websites for flights to San Diego. Finding the most reasonable fare, she booked us on United. It wasn’t a month before United messaged us with the dreaded advisory that the gnomes of customer service had changed our itinerary, so that instead of returning from SD on a 10 AM flight, we would be the not-so-happy participants in a 6 AM flight, necessitating leaving our Escondido residence at 3 AM. Oh, and should we wish to modify the modification, that will be $150 each, pus the difference in the then-current fare. This is the penalty for grabbing the early fare, and booking through the UA website. Here, folks, bite on this bullet.

We shoulda known. They did this to us before. And when I called to remonstrate with them, they agreed in subcontinental accents to change back to our original itinerary for a total of $100, which I accepted, only to see a $250 charge on the credit card bill after the fact. This harkens back to the old perfume ad – promise her anything, but give her Arpège. Anyone old enough to remember that?

Our journey started inauspiciously. 15 minutes late out the door from home this morning. We took the older car, since we would be leaving it at the airport for the week. But after the winter storm of the past two days, the driveway sported a wide and attractive snowdrift, which the lighter, older car was fascinated by and insisted on visiting with and wallowing in. James piled out and went for sand and shovel, which proved only marginally helpful. Cameron’s supply of kitty litter was not far from our minds. But Jim’s pushing skills have only slightly diminished, and between the shoveling, the sand, some rocking and rolling, and some minimal tire traction augmented by his non-cleated footwear, Paula managed to steer us out of the drift. With a little more speed, we cleared the drift and were on our way down Mt. Franklin and on to CWA.

Traffic is light in Wausau before 5 AM following a snowstorm, and plows were out and struggling with drifts and underlying ice. Add to this the bobbling left wheels of our car, due to remains of the drift caught in them, and it was vaguely reminiscent of an earlier trip to Madison to catch a flight to the same objective several years ago.

HOWEVER — first we scored a parking place at the airport not 50 yards from the entrance and exit for when we return with only spring-weight outerwear, and second, the United agent was able to revise our outbound itineray, so that we only had a 2.5 hour layover in Chicago, instead of the six hour layover that United had vouchsafed us in the first place. And Economy Plus seats! Oh, rapture! But not together. Oh, modified rapture!

CWA has been substantially remodeled. It’s not quite a stately pleasure dome, but they have installed a café area on the concourse past security, replacing the makeshift cubby that had a coffee pump pot in the corner. And when we return, who knows what garden of earthly delights will greet us in the arrivals and baggage claim area, now that all the car rental counters are moved across the road into the new building.

Passing through security, we are each given a laminated pink card when our boarding passes and drivers licenses are returned. This is not an indication of a personal foul we are told, but rather entitles us to keep our shoes and light jackets on as we pass through the metal detector arch. Sweet! On the other hand, there is also a sign indicating that all passengers over 75 are allowed to remain in their shoes and jackets. There was no inquiry, so the driveway adventure must have taken more of a physical toll than we realized. Note to self: don’t forget to refresh make-up when travelling. And the cards are collected on the far side of the metal detector, so as not to tempt us to sell them as Monopoly Chance cards — Pass Preflight Security and collect $200.

40 minute flight to Chicago, where the electronic departure board greets us with our next gate assignment, C5. First breakfast at an in-terminal Chili’s, which is interminable as to seating, service, check presentation, and collection. We’ve done the terminal shift before; it’s a two minute shuttle bus across the tarmac to a midfield terminal, and we charge right over to the steps and down to the bus which whisks us away. And C5 is immediately to our left as we enter the C terminal, so we sit down to wait.

But wait: something seems not right, since we are apparently in puddle jumper territory with planes loading and departing for Moline, Rochester, and other insubstantial airports. Check the board again. Oops, now it’s B5, changed while we were shuttling? Insidiously perfidious, these United. We might even call them the Damned United, but that would refer to a Manchester soccer team. This time we take the underground tunnel, with the strange music and ever-shifting neon lighting, arriving in good order despite United’s best efforts to lead us astray.

There again, the gods smile upon our travails, for there are still two seats available together, but not in Economy Plus with extra legroom. They are back in steerage among the goats and chickens, where compression is good for the soul, but the lure of sitting together and getting Paula through the take-off, landing, and turbulence in between makes this more attractive. And so we accept the revison, board the plane, and depart.

This is our first flight with the new electronic devices rules, and the only stricture seems to be to turn off our cellular communications, so in Airplane Mode, our various electronic tethers can remain functional, and between snoozes, we entertain ourselves with sudoku, solitaire, audiobooks, and device-centric fare, for United now demands a fee and a credit card swipe to access anything on the seatback monitor — including the in-flight map and flight progress report. And this is because of the proliferation of electronic devices with which passengers can determine the selection and timing of their own entertainment for the duration of the flight. So rather than meeting the competition, the idea is to go in the opposite direction. The supply/demand curve of perfect competition seems to have faked out the airline’s offices.

What can you say about flying these days — except maybe Ow! The seats have improved vastly in the last years, at least from the bean counters’ and vicarious contortionists’ points of view. They are marvels of discomfort in all dimensions and directions. If we were issued oars, we could at least claim professional pride in helping the ship get where it needs to go. But the seats are little more than wooden pews of a particularly Calvinistic inclination and the enemy of any body type or spinal alignment, and the passenger-packing algorithms could teach the designers of Tetris a few tricks.

Enough said about the interior. Minor turbulence on the outside at the first hour becomes an excuse for seatbelt sign for the 3.5 hour balance of the flight and for flight attendants barking about congregating in the aisles, as passengers struggle to extricate themselves from the Iron Maiden seats and to disentangle themselves from other seatmates in order to take advantage of the on-board facilities. Flying: it’s a young bladder’s game.

Flying into San Diego is a pilot’s challenge, as the route takes us over mountains and into an immediate drop to sea level, with an airport that is located at the water’s edge. So the drop in altitude is reflected in the rapid rise of cabin pressure. Hard on these old ears, and on young ears that are stuffed up with winter colds. But we make the landing with only some minor bouncing. And as they say, any landing that you can walk away from — is an indication that the airline seat designers still have not achieved their goals.