The wonders of travel

I am back from another trip now. I’ve traveled a lot this year, and all of it by air, which is unusual for me. Trips to Utah in May, July, and December. A trip to Austin in September. And the most recent was a trip to Indiana just now.

Just a few thoughts on this last trip. When I got to the airport in Tucson to leave, there were two major delays American Airlines was dealing with. One was their flight to Chicago, which I believe was because of weather (an ice storm was slamming the area). The other was my particular flight to Dallas (mechanical trouble in LA).

While I was in line to check in, I watched a woman have a conversation with the agent. This woman apparently wanted to get to Chicago (which wasn’t going to happen because of the weather). The woman explained that her husband was a member of the platinum club, so they needed to be taking extra good care of her. And then she explained that she was even being nice because she wasn’t yelling. Lady, if you have to explain that you are being nice, you aren’t. And while you weren’t raising your voice, you were in essence yelling. I don’t know what happened to her.

They gave me the option of going back home and trying again in the morning, or getting to Dallas, staying in a hotel for the night, and then leaving for Indianapolis first thing in the morning. I opted to at least make it to Dallas. One other flight to Dallas left before ours did, and we left only minutes before the third Dallas flight of the day did, making a 2.5 hour delay for me. I definitely missed my connection. But I got to spend almost 7 hours in a $250 a night suite on American Airlines bill, and they gave me $15 in food vouchers which I used for a pretty good breakfast the next morning at the airport. Should it concern me that when I went through security in Dallas the next morning I forgot to take out my quart zip lock bag of liquids and nobody noticed? And nobody noticed again when I forgot in Indianapolis on my way home?

The flight home was uneventful. We actually landed in Dallas (I had layovers there in both directions) 20 minutes early. But there was a plane at our gate waiting to have it’s toilets serviced and they’d been waiting for half an hour already. Half an hour later they still hadn’t moved (so glad I wasn’t on that plane), and they sent us to a new gate.

I arrived in Phoenix only a few minutes late, we got our luggage and started driving. We got outside of Phoenix when my wheels really started to scare me, so we stopped and checked them. They weren’t flat, but we thought we should maybe check the lug nuts anyway. And those were loose. I was amazed at how loose the front wheels were. Scary! We drove slow on the drive home, just to be safe. Everyone passed us, but it didn’t bother me. I don’t need to be the fastest car on the road. After the New Year holiday I’ll take my car in and make sure the wheels are on good.42D

And thus is the story of my last trip of 2008.

At least my trip wasn’t as bad as this guys – “Dear American Airlines“