Traveling Time

Orange tree at my LA home-away-from-home.

Used to be, flying from Santa Fe to LA meant embarking on the long haul down I-25 to Albuquerque Airport three or four hours before the flight. This last trip, I made the easy 30-minute drive across Rodeo Road for the 50-seat American Airlines direct flight out of tiny Santa Fe Airport. An intimate affair, the American Eagle flight is operating four days a week right now. Coming back was even better, navigating through giant LAX to come upon folks I knew at the small satellite terminal for the Santa Fe flight, including everyone's favorite Santa Fean, the gracious Ali MacGraw.

I was in LA for the ICG Local 600 Annual Publicists Awards, where a thousand or so publicists and Hollywood glitterati showed up during LA's biggest downpour of the winter, making their way to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel amid mudslides in the canyons and flooded streets. I feel like this is the best event of the awards season for seeing all my lifelong friends and colleagues in the entertainment media. The Golden Globes, Spirit Awards, and Oscars are the crème de la crème, but at the Publicists Awards Luncheon the glamour quotient is perfectly calibrated at an amiable pitch, this year’s event highlighted by the participation of Tony Goldwyn, JoBeth Williams, and Shailene Woodley. Most of my LA schmoozing this trip took place in Studio City and Sherman Oaks, where I was lucky enough to stay at a friend’s house in the Sherman Oaks hills. It rained the whole time, with the orange trees plumping up while roses, geraniums, and wildflowers bloomed profusely.

Arriving back in Santa Fe, it was so great to get my gate-checked wheeled carry-on in less than five minutes, pull it on over to my car that was parked for $3 a day a few feet away, then drive home and make a big pot of Trisha Yearwood’s excellent chicken tortilla soup recipe, and watch the Oscars. Mixing up a Santa Fe life with an LA life might be the best of both worlds.

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