(HOST) Commentator Deborah Luskin recently learned that while you can get there from here, it may not be a pleasant journey, and it can take an awfully long time.

(LUSKIN) I recently had the misfortune to fly on a day when the MD-80s were down. I was heading out to California to help my brother move after the breakup of his marriage. Between my teaching schedule and the termination of his lease, we had zero wiggle room for this brief trip, and my discount ticket was non-refundable.
    
In order to make my 6 am flight, I drove two hours to the airport the night before, and endured the sterile discomfort of a hotel, where I could leave my car. Poorly rested and only partially awake, I learned about the emergency inspections in the pre-dawn gloom of the mercury-vapor lights while en route to the airport.
    
There used to be a direct flight from Hartford to San Francisco, but no longer, and I already sensed the diminishing likelihood of making my connection even before the curbside agent told me I had to re-book. What I didn't expect was the utter chaos in the terminal. With only a little planning, ticket agents could have triaged passengers. Those unaffected by the MD-80 debacle could have simply taken off. The rest of us could have been taken care of in the order of departure. Instead, we were left to the chaos of mass ignorance, jostling for position even though we didn't really know what for.
    
After nearly two hours, I was rushed onto the six am flight, take-off having been delayed to seven-thirty. I arrived in Cincinnati twenty minutes after my connecting flight departed, and faced a nine-hour wait for the next one.
    
I cried, and my tears opened doors to the exclusive lounge set aside for First Class travelers, complete with an open bar. I plugged in my computer, drank two liters of water, and put in a day's work in plush surroundings. It could have been a lot worse.
    
But it also could have been a lot better.I imagined being on a high-speed train, like the one I'd once taken across France. The Train of Grand Vitesse - or TGV - speeds across the countryside at roughly 200 miles per hour. It picks up and deposits passengers in city centers, involves simpler check-in, simpler security and far more pleasant accommodations in transit. Riding a TGV, in fact, is not much different from sitting in an airport lounge, except that you're moving, not sitting still between planes.
    
If I could have boarded a train of great speed in Hartford and crossed the country at 200 miles per hour, I'd have been in San Francisco in about fourteen hours, plus another hour or two for stops along the way. Instead, I was in the air for seven hours, but in transit, door-to-door, for twenty-nine.