It is about 580 Km air miles between Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO) airports. At one time I was a very frequent traveller between those two cities. The people at the Avis rental car lot got to know me and I them. They would always have a really nice land yacht with the fewest miles waiting for me at the sub compact rental rate.

One week I had about 10 network installations to do between the two cities and beyond. The first couple of installations had their equipment shipped to me in Los Angeles. I drove my own pick up truck for the week. By the middle of the week I needed some specialized test equipment and it was shipped 'Next Flight Out' to SFO. Parking was, and still is, the biggest hassle at SFO.

I drove the pick up to the Avis return lot and parked the truck way out of the way in their lot. Then I got on the shuttle bus to the airport terminal. I picked up my test equipment and got on the Avis shuttle bus back to their lot. The bus driver recognized me from getting on at the return lot and gave me a confused look. As the bus arrived at the rental lot I remained on the bus and told the driver I needed to go to the return lot. The driver wanted to know what I was doing. I explained that if I had parked in airport parking it would be about three hours in, package pick up, out. Using the Avis lot the total time was less than an hour. The bus driver thought my solution was hysterical and he took me to my pick up truck in the return lot.