There’s just no way to get around the sucky-ness factor of a cross-country flight.
Last night I flew a red-eye from SFO to Cleveland, Ohio, and from Cleveland in the morning I flew to Baltimore, Maryland. A couple of months ago, I flew a direct flight from SFO to Washington, DC in the morning, thinking it would be better than a red-eye, but no, it still sucked because I had to get up at 3:30 am to go to the airport for the 6 am flight.
But a red-eye still sucks. Although I slept on both flights, it was that cramped sleep, which I feel like doesn’t technically count as sleep. It’s more like temporary hibernation / cocooning which is intermittently interrupted by flight attendants giving out drinks and peanuts.
When I got to Morgan State University, where our workshop is being held, I was so tired and jetlagged that I could not operate. And to top it all off, I forgot my ipod at home (it’s snuggly charging on my ihome alarm clock). You never know how valuable something is until you are thousands of miles away from it.
Moral of the story: Traveling across the country sucks, and you need to give yourself at least a day to recuperate just from the traveling itself.
For future self-reference: I need to invest in some noise-cancelling earphones and some other travel luxuries because I am traveling way too often to not take care of myself.