San Francisco, CA July 2008: It is way too early to be getting up

It was 4:00a when the phone rang. I had also set the mobile to ring at 4:00a, but I awoke at 3:59a and turned it off before it did so.

I was heading to San Francisco via Houston this morning before heading back to Houston later that day.

My body ached as I dragged myself out of bed as I had only gone to sleep less than an hour earlier.

By 4:30a, I was downstairs so I could wait for the Super Shuttle van to arrive at the pre-arranged 4:45a. At 4:44a, the driver called me and advised he was running late. he figured about 20 minutes or so. I reminded him of my 6:30a departure and he said no issues I should be fine.

He called again at 5:15a and said he was pulling into the parking lot. I went outside and jumped into the van. There were four others in there as well. They all had flights on American. We made one more stop and then we were on the highway to the airport.

He asked which terminal and gate and the folks who were taking American had no idea. So I asked for the flight number and called American at 1-800-433-7300 and got the information. The lady was quite impressed by the generosity.

When we got to DFW, the airline names were written on huge boards, but unless you knew your gate, you were pretty much hosed if you were flying on American as they used almost all the terminals. And DFW is so weird that you there are different stops for different gates. There has to be a better system I thought.