MQ#2 revisited (again)

I already posted our plane tickets, so as you can probably tell, we've decided to fly to LA. Sadly, we're going to miss out on the cross-country road trip.

There's a few important reasons why we decided to fly. But they all come down to the same overall reason: money. We did not meet our savings goal for the move. And the cost of taking vacation days for a solid (at least) 10 days for the trip--that we could otherwise cash out--combined with hotels/food/other trip expenses made it almost impossible. The other option was to not do a leisure trip, and instead rent a big truck, pile our stuff into it and then drive the most efficient, nonstop way possible to California. That would still take a good 7 days, and the truck rental (without gas) would cost around $1,600. On top of that, I don't think I could handle driving a 16' truck, and I didn't want N to drive the entire way himself (even though he thinks he could).

Another factor is that plane tickets are so freakin' cheap now! We bought our one-way tickets from JFK to LAX for $100 each. That's why we decided to splurge and buy an extra seat for Stewie. I'm already very worried about how he'll handle being in a bag for 6 hours, so I'd rather not risk having someone in the middle seat between us and let him hang out on the seat instead of being stowed under our feet the whole time.

And by the way--Virgin America is awesome! I was a loyal JetBlue flyer before, but Virgin America has totally won me over. Their tickets are (at least for now) the cheapest around, and their planes are all tricked-out JetBlue style, but better. TV screens for each seat with cable tv access, and you can play video games on them with a remote control in the arm rest. The food on the flights (for purchase) is actually good! And service is great. Another bonus: Virgin America allows you to check up to 10 bags per passenger! Seriously. And each checked bag costs $20. So, between the three of our seats, we could *possibly* check 30 bags for this move. Pretty ludicrous, but we will definitely check extra boxes with that space.

T minus 64 days.