The one stop nonstop

I flew back to Cali yesterday from Boston on Jetblue. They should name this flight the Dorm Room Exodus tour. About 2/3 of the plane was full of college kids, coming home for winter break, accompanied by massive amounts of luggage, and carrying on various and sundry musical instruments (the airline actually asked anyone with a musical instrument to board early, along with “those needing special assistance"). All the overhead bins were full.
We were scheduled to leave at 7:50PM Eastern and arrive at 11:33PM Pacific. We left on time, more or less, but the captain informed us that due to strong headwinds (170 knots=200mph), we couldn’t make it all the way to Oakland in one trip. It would take over 7 hours of flying time, something that our fully-loaded plane was not capable of.

Range: the A320 don’t got it.

So, we landed in Denver, taxied for about 15 minutes (that airport is huge) and then pulled off the side of the runway in the middle of nowhere, where a gas truck met us and we refueled. We finally arrived in Oakland at 2AM. Still took forever to get bags, even though there was no one else in the airport. Made it home and fell asleep at 3:15 i.e. 6:15 eastern time. So much for today’s productivity.
[written 12-19, posted 12-20]