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A Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The author's plan for an afternoon flight to a friend's private runway was thwarted by severe holiday traffic, making a safe, daylight landing impossible.
  • Prioritizing safety, the author rerouted to an unfamiliar Mather Airport, encountering significant challenges with dark navigation, a difficult landing without visual aids, and struggling to find unlit taxiways.
  • Despite the numerous difficulties and the "loss" in the race against the dark, the author ultimately considered the flight a victory for saving hours compared to being stuck in the severe road traffic.
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“If we don’t start moving soon,” I find myself thinking as my frustration simmers into overboil, “I swear to God I’m going to scream.”

I’m sitting in the middle of the I-580 freeway, which currently looks more like a big valet parking lot that just happens to be four traffic lanes wide. I’ve been on the road for over two hours, trying to go a distance that normally takes a third of that time. In the past 20 minutes, we’ve moved no more than 100 yards. And as I watch helplessly from a sea of cars in a canyon with no other exit or options, the sun is moving steadily lower and lower in the sky.

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