The trip home on a JetBlue red eye 3 buses, TRAX, and the A train, began after a nice final day of skiing Alta. I headed back to our lodge, the Peruvian, and had a quick shower before a night of overnight travel.
The trip home began with me and my Dad having a icy walk up from the lodge to the main road that included crossing the street shortly after 5:00pm. At the bus stop was one other passenger, the manager of the lodge who commutes by bus daily. We see the buses from the two bus routes 990 and 992 approaching our stop. We decide to try the 992 that will deliver us to the Sandy TRAX station farther south from the Midvale-Fort Union TRAX station but hear the 992 is less crowded from the manager. The bus ride is also faster. I tap my credit card to pay the fare, my Dad pays his $4.25 and gets a transfer with a picture of a skier on it, unique to this route. A guy runs up with his snowboard, wanting the 990 which we pull up behind at one of the Snowbird stops and he dashes up it. Our bus is quite empty, maybe 15 other passengers. All appear to be resort employees. There are no skis or snowboards in the rack at the back door after the snowboarder transfers. It is an uneventful ride across 9400 S, much more direct than the 990. We only make one short detour into a Park & Ride lot at 9400 S 2000 E. The ride feels much more direct than the 990 we’ve taken on past trips, also worth it for the smaller crowds.
We get to the 10000 S-Sandy Civic Center and last stop on the Blue Line at 6:05. I tap my credit card off on the bus and back on at a reader on the TRAX platform. There is a four car train on the nearest track (where doors open on both sides) with Not in Service signs. Everyone gets on that train to have an employee tell us that this train is not in service and the next train will leave from the opposite track we go back down the stairs to the island platform and have a two car train that appears to be leaving without us. It isn’t, simply running up to the northern end of the platform to access the front mini-high platform wheelchair ramp. The Blue Line is the only TRAX line left that uses the older SD100 and SD160 cars.
The TRAX train leaves at 6:15, at Midvale-Fort Union the snowboarder gets on so we know we wouldn’t have saved any time by taking the more crowded 990. At 900 South, just before the free rail zone, two UTA police offers board and do a POP Check of everyone’s tickets. They come to us, my Dad flashes his transfer, I flash my credit card. The officers lack a reader to verify that I’ve actually tapped on. They simply say “Thank You.” There is one person in the car who lacks a ticket and I can’t quite tell if the officers give him a ticket before they get off at City Hall (the beginning of the downtown free fare zone) and we watch them board the next southbound train. We get downtown at 7:00 and have two hours to find dinner.
After dinner were off for a the last run of the 550 Bus that we board at the downtown transit center at 8:52am. It is an uneventful ride to the airport where buses stop in the middle of the parking garage and I see the light rail station at the far end of Terminal 1. We use a skywalk to get to the terminal and I stop at the JetBlue kiosk to grab my boarding pass while my Dad waits in line to check his bag. There is a long line of people waiting to check bags and I realize the JetBlue ticket counter is right next to doors out at the southern end of the terminal. I go through these doors and enter what looks like a newly built little room that is the entrance area for TRAX. There are two pedestals where TVMs will soon be and the tap machines have been installed but are surrounded by bubble wrap. I go outside and snap a photo of the end of the island platform that is between two bumper blocks at the end of the two terminal tracks. It has a simple platform closed sign but no real barrier preventing passengers from accessing it.
I wonder back into the terminal and we go through a security line that takes way to long because they have just one baggage x-ray machine on and everyone is being sent through the millimeter wave scanner. The staff seems to assume you know how to go through one (I haven’t before and if its a backscanner machine I always opt-out because I don’t trust the X-rays) and end up giving me a quick pat down (asking if I have a belt) after I put my hands on the roof of the machine. It’s what the picture shows “To put your hands up” and no one is telling me how to do it properly.
At that point we have over an hour before our flight. I go for a long walk through the basically empty five concourse airport, all connected by moving walkways. I stop at an United gate with a board agent (still wearing a uniform with the tulip logo) standing at it and double check that there isn’t a UnitedClub in the airport. She says “Were not quite big enough to have one here.” I continue my walk, getting all the way to Terminal 2, controlled by Delta (which will be a longer walk to the light rail) and even going down to the complicated Regional Jet boarding area in Concourse F.
Eventually I return to JetBlue’s quite crowded gate area in Concourse A, which is right next door to one of just two other red eye flights (the third is a Delta flight also to JFK) a US Airways flight to Charlotte. There we finally board a completely full flight at 11:15 and JetBlue flight #92 leave on time at 11:33. In flight I first enjoy a ginger ale and the usual JetBlue chips and Cookies. I finally fall asleep over Iowa and manage to sleep until Michigan. From there the flight gets quite turbulent and awful with the seatbelt sign staying on for the rest of the flight. The flight attendants don’t have a chance to do there ‘wake-up’ coffee and orange juice service. They barely walk the plane with trash bags before our descent into JFK the turbulence is so bad. We end up arriving early at 5:40am at gate 25. This gate is right along a construction wall that will be the new T6 addition.
We go out to the baggage claim and the bags take for ever to come. My Dad’s bag finally arrives at 6:10 and I realize its the perfect opportunity to take the 6:20 Q10 Limited bus to Lefferts Blvd. Unlike http://subwaynut.com/updates/?p=1804my last trip on the Q10 this bus is extremely crowded, full of airport employees, going home after their late night shifts. We get to Lefferts Blvd ten minutes late at 6:45 and cross Liberty Avenue as the snow from tonights blizzard has begun and head up the steps to the subway. The NYPD have their ‘Bag Search’ table and luckily don’t flag me or my Dad over (both of us would have lost it and I at least would have just walked to 111 Street or the other entrance to Lefferts Blvd). We head up to the platform and walk the length of the train. At 6:50 we get “Good Morning, this is a 207th Street-bound A train, 111 Street will be next, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors.” We both doze on and off for the ride (I sleep nearly better than on the plane) and at 8:05 were on the elevator pushing our way through the crowd of morning commuters heading home at 181 Street.