TRAINS, PLANES and…well you know the rest

As you read this, I am sitting in the frozen tundra known as Minnesota. I’m here all week, and so far it isn’t bad. It’s above zero, the snow is falling in big, fat fluffy flakes; in short, perfect winter weather, not like the 25 below zero temps they had here a week or two ago.

I love flying, although I’m always nervous upon take off. My flight left Buffalo on time with not even a de-icing needed. I few from Buffalo to Atlanta, Georgia and then Atlanta to Minneapolis. I blame UPS for this. They determined that all packages must first go to Memphis, and then be routed to their proper destinations. Evidently the airlines assume this to be expedient as well, so I flew 750 miles to fly another 900 miles to make a 730 mile trip. Sounds logical to me.

Most of the flight to Atlanta was clouded over, but as we reached Tennessee and northern Georgia the clouds broke and I could look down on the Appalachian Mountains. WHAT a wonderful sight. The world from 20,000 feet is a beautiful thing. The earth looks like a crazy quilt from that height, all kinds of angles and colors put together. While the Midwest looks like an orderly set of blocks joined together, the eastern United States is more abstract in nature. Triangular fields of grass abut densely wooded areas which adjoin mountainous terrain. The mountains from that altitude look like puffs of brown wool. It’s easy to imagine the earth undulating in its creation, land mass against land mass, smashing into each other and finally coming to rest as mountain peaks. Looking down, the towns and villages are strung along the valleys, sometimes meandering up the side of the mountain for a short distance. One particular string of civilization caught my attention as it continued along an ever narrower valley, right to the base of three ranges coming together.

I’ve never been to Atlanta but I’d heard it’s a big airport, with five separate concourses. But not to fear, my ticket said I arrived in Terminal A and departed from Terminal A, the gates right next to each other! How convenient as I had only 45 minutes between my connections. So I walked up the gangway into the airport, gate A-17. My connection was at A-18. I looked at the departure gate – going to Costa Rica. I looked on the other side of my arrival gate. Nope, that one was going to La Guardia. I looked up and down concourse A, no flights to Minneapolis. I finally asked a gate attendant where my connecting flight was. Concourse E, gate 36. Good grief!

So I took off down the concourse, down the escalator to the underground train system. After looking at the train stops and distances I did some fast math and realized my concourse was almost a mile away! With time a wasting I jumped on the next train and headed that way. We stopped at Concourse B. We stopped at Concourse C. Departure for Concourse D was announced and I waited for the doors to close. And waited. And waited. There began a mass exodus from the train cars, and yet I waited. Finally after 8 minutes I realized the train wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. So I exited and hoofed it the last 2000 feet to Concourse E. I made it as they were boarding my flight. Exhausted and somewhat wired I found my seat and settled in for another uneventful leg of my trip.

I’m here with my son and daughter for the week, enjoying the big-city life and the bounty it offers. I’ll let you know next week what I’ve been up to. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to shopping, dining out, and museums. See you next week.