Category Archives: With love from the Tarmac

LAXadaisical

13 Sunday Jul 2014

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-LAX

On my definitive rankings of worst airports in the world, LAX is right at the top of my list. Even when things go smoothly, they are somehow laced with chaos and anxiety. I steel myself every time I enter that airport for the fresh new hell that awaits. This trip was no different.

The bright spot of flying to LAX is that the companionship is never lacking. From the woman in un-ironic cat ears to the usual omnipresent “”producers”” (double quotes because of how hard they try to act like you should wonder who they are), it was pretty great gate-watching.

Arriving in California, our gate wasn’t ready. Of course. Thirty minutes later, we deplaned and I attempted to leave the airport as quickly as possible which was hampered partly by us arriving to the last gate on the concourse and partly because there was construction everywhere (as per the usual. I have yet to fly to LAX and not encounter a construction project).

A colleague was picking me up down on the baggage level and it took her a good 40 minutes to even get into the pick-up area and then another half hour for us to find each other in the insanity that is collecting people at LAX. How can a city with highways boasting what seems like 16 lanes in each direction only have one lane for pulling over in the arrivals section of the airport?

Headed back to the airport Thursday, I thought we had left enough time to get all the way up from Orange County. Unfortunately, I forgot to budget time for the traffic shenanigans that are a staple of California–even at 5:30 a.m. We made pretty good time to LAX but I nearly bit my fingernails off as we approached within an hour of my flight and we were still fighting our way around the drop off loop to get to the Delta terminal. Unreal. I’d guess it took us a solid 20 minutes from arriving on the airport property to get to the Delta doors. Pre-Check is the only thing that got me through security and to the gate on time.

I’m just counting the minutes until my next flight West!

Back in the saddle

26 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Fun with Security, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Personal-ish

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-DTW

Hi. I’m back.

Isn’t it cute how I thought I’d post some old stories while I was out on maternity leave? Six months and one baby later, I’m back–and back in the air!

Concrete jungle

Concrete jungle

Last weekend found me getting my travel sea legs back under me by jetting off to Detroit for a Junior League conference (how thoughtful of them to have it so close to home for my maiden voyage!). I had been looking forward to the trip and dreading it in equal measure for a while so I was surprised to find it finally upon me last Thursday.

Compounding my anxiety about being away from H for three nights was the added stress of figuring out how to transport breast milk back [If this is not your cup of tea, you might want to cut out of this post now. Sorry, dudes.] Consider this post a how-to for moms who pump and fly.

Packing Tips

  1. In preparation for coming home again, I bought a soft-side can cooler which said it held about nine aluminum cans. I figured this should accommodate three days’ worth of milk stored in plastic bags. I also bought two Medela hard-sided bottle cold packs. I figured these would give some structure to the many bags and not get condensation like a standard cold pack.
  2. Made it home with the whole stash!

    Made it home with the whole stash!

    At the hotel, I made sure there was a refrigerator in the room. There actually wasn’t supposed to be one when I called ahead to ask, so I requested it. (Don’t worry if you don’t remember to request it, however; they sent me a nice little confirmation and everything only to forget to actually do it and had to send one up post check-in.)

  3. I packed my pump bag in a larger bag. I figured when I came back, this larger bag would hold the pump and the cooler bag. This greatly confused the TSA agent:
    “A big in a bag, eh? What’s in here?”
    – “A breast pump.”
    “A what now?”
    – “It’s a breast. Pump.”
    “Oh.” And then he dropped it like it was hot and he was Snoop.
  4. Obviously, you’ll also need plenty of bags, a pen for marking, and a Ziploc bag to transport pump pieces to and fro. Oh, and I wish I’d remembered a cover but a scarf worked just fine.

I actually had a very nice time pre-flight at the airport and especially appreciated the woman with whom I bonded at Surdyk’s who told me “Motherhood is a sisterhood–all my love to you on this first trip away” when I got a little bleary eyed looking at her five-and-a-half month old.

A view from Saturday's booze cruise

A view from Saturday’s booze cruise

Naturally, the flight out did not go smoothly. Due to a fast-moving storm, we were grounded for about a half hour and then pulled out of line to re-route. Twice. It was not awesome. Just when I was starting to wonder if I’d be testing out the pump’s battery-powered abilities in the airport bathroom, we were off. Crisis averted.

Although I knew TSA policies would be on my side, I wasn’t sure if all the agents would be fully accommodating. At DTW on Sunday, I went to the Pre-Check lane and was delighted to find myself all alone with three TSA agents. I wasted no time announcing to the first agent that I had precious cargo and he loudly relayed the message to his two counterparts. The agent working the conveyor did go through my bag (“Wow, it’s labeled and everything!”) and swab it for explosives but it was smooth sailing other than that. I was very relieved to get everything transferred home successfully.

It was a little weird to be back in the air. Everything felt familiar but oddly surreal. It was like using an arm that’s fallen asleep to brush your teeth. You know you’re doing it right but it feels really strange. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it again soon.

Wide Open Spaces

14 Thursday Mar 2013

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-TUL

By the time I realized my last flight pre-baby would be to Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was too late to plan anything slightly more…glamorous…in its stead. Not that the purpose of the trip wasn’t worthy–we were attending some very good friends’ wedding in the bride’s home state–but the Southern Plains weren’t high on my list for a final excursion.

I knew when I saw we were boarding out of MSP’s A gate that it was going to be a small flight. The A gate is sort of the end of the MSP airport line and usually where you can find regional flights on teeny planes to places that aren’t quite as desirable/populated/connection-worthy as other locales. My assumptions were proven correct when we showed up to A6 with its 10 chairs and saw a lovely quartet in head-to-toe camo apparel discussing the latest copy of Guns & Ammo. Clearly my people.

The flight went smoothly enough and in less than two hours we found ourselves in Tulsa. You know the song (the Oklahoma song) with the bit about “where the wind comes whistling down the plain”? I can’t confirm I actually heard the wind whistle but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a tumbleweed across the Tarmac:

Looking lively on the Tulsa Tarmac

Looking lively on the Tulsa Tarmac

Seeing these surroundings, you’ll understand the surprise I felt when the pilot came on to say that we’d be parked for a little while because both grounds crews were busy elsewhere. Yes, both of them. I know I’m kind of a snob but I still had to laugh at this.

Luckily, it wasn’t long before Larry and Bob* were able to bring us into the gate and we were off and running for a weekend of excitement. The wedding was a blast and I was thrilled to find I could still handle the hora in 3″ heels.

Good thing we got there two hours early...

Good thing we got there two hours early…

The quietness of the Tulsa airport was definitely appreciated for the flight home where there were probably as many TSA agents as morning passengers. Sheryl and I were fast friends though:

Me: Do you like boots directly on the conveyor or in a bin?

Sheryl: How sweet of you to ask! We like them in a bin.

Me: Works for me! At MSP they seem to like them directly on the belt but I like to observe the local customs.

Sheryl: “Local customs”! I love that!

Well, I am a charmer after all. After E and I went through the line I don’t think anyone else came through our lane for a solid five minutes. It was incredible.

Home once again, it appears I will be in Minnesota for the foreseeable future. It’s weird to look at my Delta app and see that after several solid years of at least one flight a month, it’s as wide open as a Tulsa Tarmac, but so it goes. All for a great cause.

If you’re concerned with how you’ll live without me/the blog for a while, fret not. I have some more archive posts up my sleeve and will post as I get them written. Plus it’s only a matter of time until there are posts about travel with a kid. I preemptively shudder at the thought.

*presumed names

Tokyo Part One: The longest journey

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Holiday Hell, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-NRT

Much like the pilgrims, we spent this Thanksgiving in a new country (because I’m so pilgrim-like). E’s sister and brother-in-law moved to Tokyo in June and we could not resist the opportunity to visit a new country (and continent!) with our very own personal tour guides. In my infinite travel planning wisdom, I thought that the week after Thanksgiving would be the perfect time for a week out of the office. This logic was pretty good except for the part where it meant we needed to fly out the day before Thanksgiving…you know, the busiest travel day of the year.

Luckily, MSP had things under control and the lines were not horrible when we showed up three hours before our flight (skipping the line with the status card didn’t hurt, however). After bumping into some friends and former neighbors (and E giving a wave to some lawyer he knew who was getting a pat-down), we had ample time to sit in the Delta lounge and catch up on work before setting the Out-of-Office replies and getting on our way.

Well, trying to anyway.

Boarding went smoothly enough and we were soon strapped in and ready for our 12+ hour flight (a direct flight seemed like such a good idea when I booked it buy OY that makes for a long sit). And there we sat…and sat…and sat some more until finally the pilot came on to say that they were waiting for the print-out of how much weight we were carrying. I still cannot figure out how, on a plane that took over an hour to board, they could not have this done in time for an on-time departure. Not that I’m not used to sitting on the Tarmac waiting for Delta to be ready to go, but seriously? And just like that, our 12 hour flight became an hour longer. Sigh.

Tokyo Park Hyatt view

View from the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt (the bar from Lost in Translation).

But we made it! And Tokyo was phenomenal–truly. The city is mesmerizing, the food is incredible, and it was great to get some family time in a new place. A few tips should you venture to Japan anytime soon:

  1. Like the Brits, the Japanese drive on the left…which means they also walk on the left side of the sidewalk. It took me about three days to get out of everyone’s way.
  2. There is no graciousness like that of the Japanese culture. Do not reach to snag a shopping bag once your transaction is complete; the associate will walk you out of the store and hand it to you.
  3. Eschew your American tendencies to get to the front of the line all the time. The Japanese line up in marked queues at the subway stops and wait until passengers have disembarked before getting on the train.

    Kamakura shrine

    Gorgeous shrine in Kamakura

  4. On that note, never worry about making a train–they run every few minutes without fail. No need to make a mad dash.
  5. Smoking is generally allowed in restaurants but not at sushi counters.
  6. Soba might be one of the best things ever invented, right behind soup dumplings.
  7. An earthquake is nothing to get overly concerned about (usually). We were at the Park Hyatt’s New York Bar on the 52nd floor when a 4.9 magnitude earthquake struck. E thought it was fun. I thought it was terrifying. The waiter asked if we wanted more rice crackers.
  8. It’s almost impossible to mentally calculate what something really costs between dollars and yen (at least for this English major). Don’t sweat it; it’s all money well spent.
Mori Tower View

The view from the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower – Mt. Fuji’s in the background

All in all, a great time. We unfortunately did not venture far outside of Tokyo but were hardly left wanting for more to see and do. Although we were dead on our feet for a few days due to severe jet lag, we agreed that it was one of the best trips we’ve ever taken.

Second post about our trip home to come!

A Lesson in Patience

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Seatmate Shenanigans, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-PHX

In case we haven’t already established it, I am short on patience. (And if you’re hoping from the title that I actually learned a lesson in the virtue of patience, you may be disappointed.) My recent flight to Phoenix for a work conference only confirmed that I should probably have my blood pressure checked.

At any rate. The ways my patience was tried–let me count the ways…

  1. No room at the inn. It’s happened to friends of mine, but I’ve never experienced the hell that is driving up to Terminal 1 and finding that all the ramps are full. FULL. Arg. Thank goodness I always go to the airport two hours early so that I had time to drive to Humphrey and then light rail it over.
  2. “Do I have to take my shoes off?” Security is definitely a place where you need to take a deep breath and tune out the idiocy surrounding you. That is, unless you’re in the PreCheck lane. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to expect more from PreCheck compatriots so imagine my annoyance when the woman in front of me clearly did not understand that she was in the fast lane. “Do I have to take my shoes off?” No. “Should I take out my laptop?” No. “Oh [after the metal detector goes off], but I need to take my belt off?” FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. The TSA agent did apologize to me for the delay (of 48 seconds) so that was appreciated anyway.
  3. A man of the book. That was how the guy across the aisle introduced himself when I asked what he did. How do I always attract these people? And why do I insist on talking to them?
  4. The classiest man on earth. My seat mate (with the middle seat) showed up with a sack of Chik-fil-a which gave me instant nausea just thinking about the stale french fry smell that was soon to encompass me. He made snide commentary during the entire safety film and pilot’s announcements. And then he fell asleep. As he was already protruding from his seat onto mine, it was only a matter of time until his arm started drifting over the armrest he had claimed and into my seat. After several attempts to politely jostle him, I finally just shoved his arm back onto him. But we weren’t done yet…as his sleep deepened, he began to snore and then to ever so slightly fall over onto me. Unfortunately for him, when this happened I was totally ensconced in my work and jumped, effectively scaring the crap out of both of us. (Don’t worry, he easily fell back to sleep and we got to repeat the process.)
  5. The Parisians are coming. Boarding seemed to go incredibly smoothly, which should have been my first clue that something was about to go wrong. The reason for the smoothness, it turned out, was that half our plane was coming from a delayed connection from France. Thirty minutes after we should have departed, the French arrived. Because I’m such a Francophile, I’m usually the first to defend them…but not this time. The lot of them seemed to have no idea that they’d been on a late flight and lallygagged their way onto the plane. Finally all aboard (and after telling one woman, in French, that no, she could not just sit in the seat beside me because it was vacant (my classy seat mate was in the restroom)), I was ready to roll…alas, we still had to wait for the French luggage. An hour after we should have departed…we finally did. Patience: officially tried.
Inc. 500 | 5000 Awards Conference

With the editor-in-chief of Inc. Magazine accepting the Inc. 5000 award

Luckily, everything was much better once I made it to Arizona (well, once I located the taxi stand. Not big on any extra signage in the basement of the airport). I spent my days going between the ice-cold conference rooms and the sweltering 100 degree oven that is Phoenix.

Then, E flew down Friday once his conference in L.A. wrapped up to escort me to the award ceremony of the Inc. 500 | 5000 conference (where I picked up my company’s hardware, see right) and we spent the following day exploring Sedona. All in all, a great getaway to the southwest.

I’m sure it’s been unbearable without my frequent updates so get excited–my next trip is Thursday as we are off to Canada for a family wedding. Hopefully my patience will not be further tried.

Sedona, Arizona

Lovely Sedona

You Can’t Go Home Again

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Cancellation Clusters, With love from the Tarmac

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It’s hard to believe I started the blog a year ago today. Not to get all 15 year-old emo on you, but it’s been a really amazing and gratifying experience. I’ve been able to bond with new and old friends over shared flying catastrophes as well as get some serious anxiety off my chest. So thanks, all. Cheapest therapy yet.

In honor of the one-year mark, I am finally going to recount a story I’ve been hinting at for a while now–the trip home from studying abroad in 2004…brace yourself.

Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta/KLM

Route: CDG>AMS>JFK>LGA>MSP

Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.

-Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

On a couple of occasions whilst trapped in some travel nightmare or another, I’ve had the distinct fear that I’m never going to get home again. I know it’s irrational and completely brought on by the current stress, but I can’t help it. There’s this point where you’re sitting on a plane/in an airport/at security and you just feel completely defeated–like all the travel gods are conspiring to keep you from your destination.

Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur, Paris

I have never felt this more acutely than on my way home from studying abroad in 2004. It was late June in Paris, hot and sticky, and I hadn’t been home since March. Although my time in France had been nothing short of magical, I was ready to go home.

My father had come to Paris to collect me (my parents joked that if they didn’t physically retrieve me I wouldn’t ever come home) and it had been the perfect close to my travels as I got to spend a week showing off the city I had come to love. But now we were homeward bound.

Things got off to a bad start right at Charles de Gaulle. As mentioned in my post on this airport, it is perpetually under construction and, despite Paris being a huge tourist attraction, nobody really wants to help you. So my dad and I wandered around until we found the temporary relocation of the KLM desk. Although we wouldn’t know until we were stateside that our bags had been mis-routed, the KLM agent was new to the job and not instilling a whole lot of confidence, especially when we knew this was only the first of our three legs. She consistently re-asked us our names and our final destination, even when our passports and boarding passes were in her hands…we should have known she was a harbinger of disaster.

Monet's house at Giverny

Monet’s house at Giverny

Arriving late in Amsterdam (naturally), we had about ten minutes to make our connection. Which meant I had to run the entire length of the airport with my poor dad hauling our carry-ons behind me as I tried to stop the flight from departing without us (more color on this in my last post). Luckily, the door hadn’t yet closed and we made it on the flight. Things seemed to be looking up–everything would be better once we were in the US, right? If only we had known what was ahead…

Cannes, France

Cannes, France

We landed at JFK on time and had a couple of hours before our flight to Minnesota. We were herded to the international luggage carousels to collect our luggage before connecting to our domestic flight. We waited. And waited. And waited. No luggage. Finally realizing our bags were not coming, my dad and I went through Customs and straight to the Delta luggage services office. If you ever think you have a terrible job, you don’t. Livid as I was, I cooled down considerably after watching the poor woman running the office listen to some self-absorbed businessman go on for five minutes straight about how unacceptable it was that his luggage was lost and demanding $2,000 for a replacement suit. Oy. As if she was just going to give him a wad of cash and her sincere apology.

When we got our turn with Deb (I will always remember her name because I took special note to look at it after the jerk left in a huff), I was calmer but still completely riled up. Our two checked bags were missing and they held the wine and precious souvenirs I had collected over my stay. Luckily, Deb assured us that luggage is rarely “lost”, it’s usually just mis-routed. Indeed, our bags had been sent straight through to Minneapolis rather than following us.

Gordes, France

Gordes, France (Provence). No wonder I almost didn’t come home.

With that crisis averted, we were sure it’d be smooth sailing. Oh how wrong we were.

There had been some issue with our tickets so we went up to Delta ticketing at JFK. The extremely unhelpful representative told us that our flight had been canceled due to weather and that he could potentially re-book us on a flight to MN from Laguardia, but we’d have to get over there right away as the flight was in 45 minutes. Then he ripped up our boarding passes. Ripped. Them. Up. Yes, our flight had been canceled, but shouldn’t we have some proof of our previous arrangements? Anxiety reaching Defcon 3.

But what was there to do? We hailed a taxi and got over to Laguardia. After re-checking in, we headed to our gate. By now we knew that there was some serious weather affecting all East Coast airports. In fact, every airport had been completely shut down for a few hours (including JFK, LGA, Newark, Reagan, Dulles and ATL) and flights were getting canceled left and right. Awesome news.

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Our gate agent assured us our flight was going but we weren’t so confident when the flight next to us (to Detroit) boarded and then un-boarded with the flight ending up canceled. We did board though, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when we actually pushed back. Finally, I was going to get home!

Not so fast. During our boarding and beginning taxi, the airports were shut down again. As our pilot explained, however, if we went back to the terminal, we’d be in for the night so he wanted to wait it out on the Tarmac as that was our only shot of actually getting home. Thank goodness for a MN-based flight crew and some foresight on the part of the pilot to top off the fuel.

Three hours later we were still sitting on the Tarmac with no end in sight. My cell phone was dead as were our laptops and the mini-DVD player my dad had with him. We had pretty much nothing to do except try to remain calm. Not my forte.

FINALLY, after nearly four hours on the Tarmac, we got an update from the pilot. Apparently, airports had reopened and due to his air traffic control connections (is there a pilot frat?), we were going to get out. Better than that, because so many planes had to go back to the terminal after running low on fuel, we were going to be the second plane out of the entire East Coast. I’m pretty sure I cried when we took off. There was a whole lot of clapping.

Although I had convinced myself I was never going to get home, we did finally make it (and for all those shenanigans, we were only about seven hours late). My big bag did not (of course–god forbid something work out), but it was delivered to my parents’ house the next day and all the wine survived. Whew.

And this, my friends, is why I never make a connection. Direct flights only.

Eiffel Tower

La Tour Eiffel, bien sur

P.S. – you will all be delighted to know that after missing both our prior anniversaries due to work travel, I will be firmly planted on the ground here in MN come Thursday’s three-year mark. To the rest of our natural lives (and beyond), Intrepid E!

Airports I’ve Known and Loathed, Part I – CDG

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, With love from the Tarmac

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I mentioned in my last post that I’d write a future installment with commentary on specific airports that have caused me headaches (and blisters!). What was mostly meant as an off-handed comment actually brought some very specific requests for these posts to take place. So, much like the deconstructed baggie post, away we go!

L’Arc de Triomphe, safely taken from the center of traffic by my father.

I bet you thought I’d start with ATL but honestly, some of the most poignantly awful experiences I’ve had in an airport reside at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I know that this has the propensity to sound like a White Whine submission, but it’s the truth. Here are the top three memories I have from disasters at CDG:

  1. The time that kid threw up. E spent a year at LSE getting a Master’s so after I graduated undergrad, we thought a European jaunt would be the perfect celebration. Since he was in London, we decided to meet in Paris. Très romantique, n’est-ce pas? After landing at CDG, I was surprised/not surprised to find that we couldn’t pull up to a gate. I was surprised because we were on a HUGE plane filled with hundreds of passengers (I had connected through Detroit) and not surprised because CDG is always a hot mess of construction. On the Tarmac, we were loaded into a tram/bus thing to get to the main terminal. I wasn’t wild about this, but what are you going to do? Unfortunately, one of my fellow travelers, a little girl who was probably about six years-old, was even less excited. No sooner had she uttered “Je me sens mal” to her mother and she was throwing up all over the back of the tram. It was not awesome. Everyone just kind of looked at each other with grimaces and edged away from the mess. Exactly the kick-off to vacation I was hoping for!

  2. Notre Dame by night.

    The time the baggage carousels were closed. As repeatedly mentioned, I usually carry on luggage. However, when I was traveling to Paris in 2004 to study abroad, I needed a few more pairs of shoes than I usually bring on vacation so I had checked luggage. Upon arrival we were, of course, routed to Customs. I was 20 years-old, completely alone, and not really at a point of mastering my French skills so you can guess how terrifying this was. After clearing Customs, I went to baggage and looked around frantically for a monitor that would tell me which carousel held my bag. As CDG is perpetually under construction, all the carousels were closed. I kid you not. Every single bag was coming out of ONE hole. The chaos was palpable. I still do not understand what travel gods were looking out for me, but the second I deduced what was going on and edged my way to the hole of baggage, my bag came through. I know, it’s a mystery to me, too. Let’s all pause to say a prayer of merci.

  3. The time that new KLM agent lost my luggage. At the end of my study abroad session, my dad came over to visit and we flew home together. When we got to CDG, we queued for check-in at KLM and had an agent who was clearly new on the job. Although a supervisor was theoretically helping her, she still managed to get everything wrong. We were connecting home through Amsterdam and NYC and she booked our bags all the way to Minneapolis. Imagine our surprise at JFK when our bags never showed up and we had to explain to Customs that we weren’t doing anything untoward. Considering the amount of precious cargo I was bringing back stateside, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Not to mention that when we got to Minneapolis, one of the bags was missing altogether (naturally the one with all the expensive wine), and wouldn’t be located and delivered until the following day. Don’t worry, the wine survived.

I should probably note at this point that Paris is my all time favorite city. I could/would/probably should live there.

Still my favorite tourist attraction.

I should also probably note that I flew to CDG about a year ago and everything was running much more smoothly than when I encountered the above situations. Regardless, a million disasters at CDG could never diminish my love of Paris.

If they run out of wine, we may have to reassess.

LaLa Land

16 Monday Jul 2012

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-LAX

Have you missed me? I’ve missed you, too. My apologies for the hiatus; after a big job change, there are no more monthly trips to Atlanta. I will miss the blog fodder but not much beyond that.

Griffith Park Observatory

Griffith Park

At any rate, don’t be too worried about the blog! There are a few more trips coming up this year that should provide good stories, starting with this past week’s trip to visit  our dear friends M and E in L.A.

After not traveling since May (I still can’t believe I went the entire month of June without going to the airport), I was nearly giddy to be back at the airport. (I know; I’m seeking therapy.) It didn’t last long.

As expected, the plane for L.A. was huge which meant the perfect storm of half boarding vultures and half people who were in lala land (either because they weren’t native English speakers or because they were en route to an island destination but hadn’t flown in a decade). Seriously, just people wandering aimlessly around the gate, asking each other what zone was being boarded and if this was in fact the plane to L.A.

The Getty, Los Angeles

The view from the Getty

Once aboard, I still retained some of the initial giddiness of the day and excitedly took stock of our compatriots. My analysis started and stopped with the gentleman across the aisle from E who was blowing his shirt in his t-shirt collar. No, not wiping his nose to alleviate an itch, legitimately blowing his nose. Attractive. (He would later play a game on his iPhone for about 40 minutes with the phone on full volume and no headphones in sight.)

Arriving on time, we were excited to get our trip going. Unfortunately, this was thwarted by the inefficiency that is LAX. (I will save the detailed rundown of how much I hate this airport for when I write a future post on airports I’ve known and loathed, but suffice it to say LAX is right up there among the worst.)

We taxied for what seemed like an hour but stopped short of the terminal. Several minutes later, the pilot came on to tell us that our gate wasn’t ready and that we’d have to wait a bit longer. Ten minutes went by and the pilot came back on to tell us that the plane occupying our gate hadn’t pushed off yet but was supposed to do so soon. After another ten minutes, the pilot finally gave us the good news that our gate was open and we’d be pulling up shortly. Excellent. We creeped over to the Delta terminal–we were so close I could see the open gate–but were stopped again by all the ground traffic. The pilot came on to apologize for the congestion and asked us to stay put while we waited for the other taxing planes and various baggage carts to go by. Sigh. Maybe the ground crew was in lala land, too, because it certainly didn’t appear as though anything was happening in a hurry. Luckily, it was only five more minutes until we were finally at the gate and awaiting the jet bridge.

Griffith Park, Los Angeles

Probably professional models.

Inside the airport it was smooth sailing to the sea of chaos that is baggage claim and ground transport and an amazing weekend in LaLa Land commenced.

Also, M and I are apparently LuLuLemon models (see right; photo credit to E).

Of Tarmacs and tears

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Monday Madness, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

Just when I’d started to think I wouldn’t get any good blog material any time soon due to my last few trips going off with few complications, the gods of travel intervened…If you’ve ever read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, you have a pretty good idea of where this is going.

Fun things that happened on this morning’s 6:30am flight:

1. TSA comedian joked that they wouldn’t be able to get a reading from the full body scanner because I was so short. Hysterical.

2. Six TSA reps visited my gate to check everyone’s photo IDs prior to boarding. Three people got a surprise pat-down. Guess who one of them was.

3. Finally aboard, I’m attempting to put my bag up (read: use my lacking upper body strength to more or less throw my bag toward the overhead bin. Ok, maybe the TSA guy was funny after all.) when I am hit in the head by someone trying to put her bag up across the aisle. (This is where the ‘tears’ part of this entry’s title comes from, btw; she really smacked me good. Don’t worry though, she totally got what was coming to her when I didn’t do the Minnesotan thing and say “That’s ok.” when she apologized. I’m sure she noticed the slight and was duly shamed.)

4. Finally. Let’s get this show on the road.

Alas.

After sitting on the Tarmac idling for about a half hour, the captain finally comes on to tell us that a valve that controls the air is stuck and maintenance has to fix it. We sit for about 10 minutes and then finally head back to the gate. At first we’re told it will be 20 minutes…20 minutes later we’re told it will only be 10 more minutes…this is followed by maintenance deciding it needs 15 more minutes to actually replace the valve (what had they been doing back there anyway??). Finally, we’re told it will only be five more minutes to get the final paperwork produced. Oy gevalt.

As you would imagine, about half the plane is now approaching Defcon Three. There’s a couple behind me going on their honeymoon (connecting to Cancun), the guy next to me is trying to go to Gainesville, and the guy two rows back was apparently going to The Most Important Conference of ALL TIME because it was IMPERATIVE he make his connection, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? Like poor Neil the flight attendant has any control over the damn valve. (Although I did shoot Neil an “Are you f-ing kidding me?” face when he told some woman visiting her granddaughter that “Delta will take care of you.” For the record: Zero gate agents met our flight.)

5. Finally-finally. We’re really going to go this time. The captain promises.

But we do really take-off. Yay! And for all that, we land only about 40 minutes late. They really do pad flying times.

6. Oh yes, there’s more. I get to the car rental center and head to grab a car at National (with status, you can just walk to any aisle and take a car). Inexplicably, National has all American cars…and Jettas. I always take a Jetta. So I find one, walk over, start putting my bag in and an elderly couple approaches me.

Woman: “Why did you choose this car?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “We’re trying to decide what car to get but I can’t pick.”

OMG. Is this really happening? The only contact I want to have at the rental car center is with the person at the exit gate. And even then I don’t like to make small talk.

Me: “You know you get to bring it back, right?”

Woman: “But we have to drive it for three days!”

I am dumbfounded but luckily she scoots away to admire a Kia. I did nearly run her over (accidentally! swear!) leaving the parking lot so I feel like we’re even.

And finally, I arrive in glamorous Alpharetta. If only Starbucks offered a shot of Bailey’s.