After two great days at Oakmont, the fun finally caught up with me. On my birthday I felt 45. The day after I felt my full age and then some. Lack of sleep, too much good wine, heat, humidity, dehydration etc. all combined to make my final day a bit tough. But, I pushed through.

I’m now at the PIT airport watching a slow motion train wreck – there’s heavy weather here, and flights are late and cancelling. One of my traveling companions had two flights cancel on him, and then when he tried to just stay over at the airport hotel, it was full. In today’s air travel system, each problem creates another and it all falls apart pretty fast. So far my flight is only 3 hours late, but they say they’re still going. I’ll get to my destination by 1030pm if nothing else fails.

The “lurching forward” phrase was uttered by one of my playing partners today as he described our progress toward the green. I liked it – that’s a good description of my golf game. And it pretty much sums up the whole day so far.

I know I’ll never take this trip again, so the memories of the first two great days will have to stay with me. Good friends, a classic golf course, a semi-athletic feat accomplished (walking 6+ miles every day in heat), great food and wine. That’ll do.

UPDATE, several hours later. After escaping Pittsburgh on one of the only flights with routing to Louisville, I’m in Atlanta. While in flight SWA changed my departure time for Louisville from 930pm to 1230am !! So I’m stuck here wearing a mask for another three hours. I arrive at 130am, so the rental car service will be closed. My baggage may or may not get unloaded. I can only hope I get a taxi or Uber. If not, I guess I’m sleeping in the Louisville airport.

As a bonus, none of the restaurants or bars in this part of the ATL airport are open – they all closed at 9pm. I am staying (relatively) patient with it all, but I’m tired. And four hours from now I’ll be really tired.

The state of air travel in the US is very, very fragile right now. Everyone is understaffed, hours are curtailed, and the least little disruption crashes the whole system/schedule. I will be a bit less ambitious about my next few journeys.