MY FIRST TIME FLYING WITH ALASKA AIRLINES .

I have flown on many airlines in the United States and Canada , but on my trip to San Francisco back to Las Vegas , I flew on an airline that I have never been on before , Alaska Airlines .

The Seattle , Washington based airline does fly out of all three New York City airports that I fly out of.

I never thought of taking Alaska out of JFK or Newark Liberty , because I’m not going to find a $49 one way fare like I did for San Francisco to Las Vegas .

For a flight to a destination like Las Vegas , which is always crowded , the plane was surprisingly empty.

If you happen to fly to Las Vegas on Alaska , you’ll be more than likely arriving in Terminal 3, where you have to get a shuttle to take you to terminal , where you can get Lyft, Uber, hotel shuttles, taxis, or good old public transportation like I always do if I get to Vegas at a decent hour, like before 9pm.

The seats are very comfortable and this time, I had a whole row to myself.

I was also able to sleep on the plane and not be disturbed by anyone , except the flight attendants passing out snacks , water or Orange juice as this was a very short flight .

Once again, with just my drawstring bag , I got out of the terminal very fast .

If I happen to get an inexpensive flight on Alaska out of Newark Liberty or JFK , you’d better believe I’m taking it, and because I just had to be “that Sports Diva who loves collecting air miles” , you just know that I signed up for Alaska Airlines Frequent Flyer Program.

Besides, you never know.

God willing, I may be doing a 30 Plus Teams Tour of the Emerald City, aka Seattle, Washington.

HELLO LOMBARD STREET

Its claim to fame is that it’s the crookiest street in the United States.

I don’t know about that.

All I know is that it’s a lot easier walking DOWN Lombard Street than walking up.

This was number 125 on my bucket list.

I took the wrong cable car from Powell street to get to Lombard.

Instead of taking the cable car that dropped me off at the TOP of Lombard, I took the one that dropped me off at the BOTTOM and walked up where the cars were coming down the street, VERY SLOWLY, ONE BY ONE.

As I was catching my breath from walking up Lombard Street and looking at the beautiful view of Coit Tower in the background, I thought to myself.

It’s a good thing this street doesn’t get snow.

MY VIDEO AT THE CHASE CENTER

GETTING EXCITED AT SEEING CHASE CENTER

I did a day trip to San Francisco while in Las Vegas on 25 February.

I didn’t get to see or do everything that I wanted to do, but the main thing was checking out the new home of the Golden State Warriors of the NBA .

They played at the Oracle Arena in Oakland for many years before moving to their fancy new arena, Chase Center, right across the bay in San Francisco .

As a matter of fact , one of the murals shows two people fighting for a basketball.

One is in Oakland, the other is in San Francisco .

You can see the other famous bridge, the Bay Area Bridge , which separates Oakland from San Francisco .

I happen to think this is a prettier bridge than the Golden Gate Bridge , even if you can’t walk across it.

I didn’t get to see a game here, but the Sports Diva was just happy to be there for the day.

Enjoy pictures of my exciting time at the home of “Dub Nation”

A DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO OR OH MY GOD THOSE HILLS!

I spent one day in San Francisco, California as I was in Las Vegas, which is an hour and 10 minutes flight away.

For a week or so before my trip, I was trying to decide just what I wanted to see for just that one day.

I only had a few hours, landing at 8am and getting back to San Francisco International Airport by 3:45pm for a 5:25pm flight back to Las Vegas.

I wanted to see as much as I could see.

Good luck with that I said to myself as I kept crossing off things to see and do.

Being the Sports Diva that I am, one place WASN’T coming off my list no matter how much time I had in town.

It was a visit to the Chase Center, the new home of ‘Dub Nation’, better known as the Golden State Warriors basketball team.

Another thing not coming off my list was a visit to Lombard Street, which is easier to walk down than up, but more on Lombard Street in another post.

From the moment you arrive at San Francisco International Airport, you notice something.

Is every neighborhood in the city trying to outdo each other when it comes to hills?

Chinatown was even hilly and even though I didn’t get to see the famous Chinatown Gate, I did get to walk through the Chinatown tunnel that separates Chinatown from Union Square.

For some reason, while walking through the tunnel, there are signs asking you to be silent.

Don’t ask, I just kept walking.

The flight back to Las Vegas McCarron was even shorter and I arrived back at 6:30pm.

After walking up more hills than I really needed to see in my entire lifetime, I will be more than ready to fall asleep when I finally get back to my hostel.

AT SFO AND TAKING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AROUND THE CITY

First of all, let me tell you that when your flight from anywhere lands in San Francisco International Airport, aka SFO, you’re not in the city.

It’s not even close to Downtown San Francisco or any other neighborhood in the city.

It takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour by the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, to get into the city.

I’m not even joking when I tell you that when you purchase one of the reloadable transit cards, called a Clipper Card, from one of the transit machines at the airport BART, add $70 to it.

No I didn’t stutter.

If you’re thinking of doing a day trip like I did in February, add a lot of money to that card.

If you’re going to such popular tourists sites like the Embarcadero, Union Square or Fisherman’s Wharf, it’s going to cost almost $20 round trip to and from the airport.

If you want to go anywhere else on BART or the light rails or buses run by MUNI, that’s almost $5 round trip depending on where you’re going.

Let’s say you want to take a ride on one of those famous cable cars.

You can use that Clipper Card.

It’ll cost you $7 each way.

You get the idea.

San Francisco is one wicked expensive cities, but if you have the opportunity to visit San Francisco on a 30 Plus Teams Tour or not, make sure that you have more than enough money on your clipper card.

If you have ever been to Washington DC, you know that you have to have your transit card to enter and exit the station.

Same for San Francisco.

Have that card to enter and exit the BART or MUNI Station.

That’s how they track your fare.

If you need to reload your card or add more money to your card to get out of the station, they have machines to do that also.

You can even use the Clipper Card to ride the BART to those East Bay cities of Oakland and Berkeley.

Just make sure you have enough money on that Clipper Card.

GETTING TO KNOW SOUTHWEST AIRLINES AGAIN

They don’t fly out of Newark Liberty Airport anymore and they definitely don’t fly out of JFK .

In the New York area, they fly out of McArthur Airport , which is in Islip and Laguardia, which is close to me but I’d rather fly out of Newark Liberty then fly out of the madhouse that is Laguardia .

As for Islip McArthur, it’s way too far and it isn’t even in the city of Islip ,Long Island .

It’s in Ronkonkoma.

So when my 30 Plus Teams Tour took me on a one day trip to San Francisco , I jumped at the chance to take my favorite airline for the one hour and 10 minute flight from Las Vegas .

As I really didn’t have any luggage, just a drawstring bag that held everything pretty much , security was quick and easy for once, and I arrived at the airport way earlier than my 6:15am flight.

Southwest doesn’t charge for carryon bags like some other airlines do, and your first two check in bags are free.

The seats have numbers but there’s no assigned seating , which means that you can sit anywhere on the plane , even the exit row, if you feel like helping out in cases of emergency .

It was nice having the middle seat empty.

A whole row to myself would have been nice, but hey, the Sports Diva is on the plane, living her best life,doing that 30 Plus Teams Tour of San Francisco .

There are no screaming babies on the flight and no kids kicking the back of my seat .

Coming back, I’ll be taking Alaska Airlines , a carrier that I have never been on before .

My return will be on another post .

In the meantime , it’s about the planes that are blue, orange and red, Southwest Airlines.

I just have one question for them though.

Would it be asking too much for you guys to fly out of JFK ?

I’m just asking for a friend who also loves going on 30 Plus Teams Tours .

CUTTING DOWN THE BUCKET LIST

Of all the 136 things left to do on my bucket list, this is one of the things that I really wanted to do more than anything else.

No, it’s not seeing Mount Rushmore, Pearl Harbor, the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam.

It wasn’t even taking a ride on the High Roller in Las Vegas or a ride on all the streetcars in New Orleans.

It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for three years, but for some reason, never got the chance.

On March 1, I finally got the chance to do number 115 on my list.

Going to a Vegas Golden Knights hockey game.

From the moment you enter the building affectionately known as ‘The Fortress’, the TMobile Arena, which is located right behind New York New York Hotel and Casino and right next door to Park MGM, you get the feeling that you’re in for something completely different than any sporting event that you’ve ever been to.

It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting behind the glass, the benches, high up in the nose bleed seats or like me, watching the game from Hyde TMobile Arena, located on the very top of the arena, you can see all of the action going on down on the ice.

Hyde does have standing room, but if you get there early enough, you can sit next to your closest friends on couches.

There’s big screen tv’s where you watch the action as well if you can’t get close enough to the seats near the ice.

This is Vegas, peeps.

You’re going to get a little entertainment while watching the NHL’s newest team.

It might be the DJ spinning tunes up at Hyde between periods, members of the Cirque Du Solei performing on the ice between periods, the Vegas Vivas, the team cheerleaders taking pictures with fans before, during and after the game, Chance, the team mascot entertaining the crowd with his antics or even the team announcer, who whips up VGK Nation into a frenzy BEFORE the game starts.

I have been a hockey fan since 1967 and I have never experienced anything like I saw in Las Vegas.

It didn’t even matter that the team lost to their rivals, the Los Angeles Kings, that night.

I was finally happy after three years crossing seeing a Vegas Golden Knights game off my bucket list.

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IT’S NOT A JOKE ANYMORE, IT’S SERIOUS NOW

The Sports Diva is interupting her usual funny and upbeat 30 Plus Teams Tour posts for something very serious.

It’s not only affecting people in the United States, but everywhere.

Two countries, Italy and China are on basically lockdown because of it.

It’s something called the Corona Virus.

It’s not the common cold or the regular flu.

This virus can kill you and it has.

Every day someone seems to contract it and unfortunately many have died from it.

It started in Wuhan, China and then spread.

Peeps weren’t taking it seriously.

Social media was full of memes making light of it.

One of the most popular ones was of a six pack of Corona beer standing by itself and in the far corner with a face mask on was a six pack of Heineken beer.

Then it happened.

It wasn’t just people in China who were dying from this disease.

They say you don’t care until it affects you.

Then it did and for some reason, people all over the world were going crazy and panicking over something that they really should have had before.

Hand sanitizer.

We don’t know how this virus started but my peeps really some of you don’t wash your hands coming out of the bathroom.

Are you for real right now?

This virus has hit everything and everybody.

No one is immune.

The actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson contracted the virus in Australia.

It’s hit the United States very hard to the effect that governors are declaring a state of emergency.

My governor, Andrew Cuomo, of New York is one of them.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade here in New York has been canceled for the first time in years.

258 of them to be exact.

After a member of the Utah Jazz basketball team contracted the virus, ALL NBA games have been suspended until further notice.

Soccer matches in England and Italy have been cancelled because of this.

As of today, the NHL may or may not follow the NBA because many of the NBA and NHL teams share arenas.

The President has even issued a travel ban on Americans flying to Europe, although for some reason, the UK isn’t on that banned list.

What does this mean for those of us who travel whether we’re doing a 30 Plus Teams Tour or not?

Do we suddenly stop traveling?

Or do we continue and enjoy life the best way we can.

I say, it’s up to the individual.

I can only speak for the Sports Diva.

I’m concerned about this virus yes, but I don’t live in a bubble.

I will continue to enjoy my travel as long as the good Lord allows.

But I will stay aware of all the goings on with this virus.

It’s not a joke anymore.

FAN FEST TIME WITH THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS

This is a 30 Plus Teams Tour after all, and the Sports Diva is making the most of it.

On the last day of February , the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team had their annual Fan Fest at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.

This year was different , though

Normally, the players meet and greet the fans.

Not this year.

Even though they never mentioned it, concerns about the Coronavirus might have had something to do with why the players didn’t interact with many of the fans , even seasons ticket holders.

However, fans did interact with the team mascot, Chance, the cheerleaders , known as the Vegas Vivas, the team play by play broadcasters and the in game entertainment people.

There were some Golden Knights players though, and while they were on stage, many of us loved the games that they played.

How well do you know your teamate, Vegas Golden Knights Family Feud, and other games were played by the players as well as a Question and answer session with the coach and new players .

Now what would a fan fest be without some swag and of course, the Sports Diva was happy .

A Team Sports Apparel Fashionista ALWAYS needs new swag.

Even though this fan fest was different, a good time in Vegas was had by all .