STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE TRIP THAT WENT WRONG

 

So, okay, Mrs. C and I were going to have a long weekend in my much-loved home town. Some good dinners, theater, a special art show, maybe some touristy stuff. As mentioned, hot new restaurant on Thursday, the first night. Food poisoning, up much of the night with bi-directional GI eruptions. Exhausted, in bed asleep most of Friday. Managed to get out to dinner Friday to a favorite place and couldn’t finish an appetizer. We had theater tickets Saturday and did get out to a very funny show called The Play That Went Wrong, although I wasn’t always following it well.  Dinner at a little Italian place, where I made it into the second course before giving up.

Then things got worse. Our flight home Sunday wasn’t until 6 so we got to the Metropolitan Museum for the show we wanted to see. It was raining when we went to La Guardia and, as the day ended, a heavy fog settled over the airport. Close to half of the AA flights were canceled, including ours. Got online looking for alternatives. No non-stop seats the next day. Got an airport hotel and booked us through Chicago with a 5.5 hour layover. But La Guardia had high winds Tuesday morning and only one runway was in use. We sat on a taxiway for more than an hour before leaving on a two hour flight. Few seats had been available, so 6’ 3”/ 190 cm me was stuck in a middle seat for 3+ hours. When we got to Chicago our STL flight was running 90 minutes late just because. It turned out to be 3.5 hours late, with a change of aircraft because there was a pressure leak in a cockpit window of the original plane.  

So we got home 30 hours late, but we’re here. First world problems, right?                          

IN CHICAGO - NEXT STOP

BACK IN THE AIR

It's been a long time but we are flying again today. I've been fascinated by flight since my first time at maybe 11 or 12. It was just New York to Washington but I'll never forget it. I never tire of its near-miraculous qualities, especially when we cross large bodies of water. Just land today but sea tomorrow. It's about time.                     

BEEN A LONG TIME

An old photo of the main concourse of the American Airlines terminal at Chicago - O'Hare. There was a time in my life when it was a rare month that I didn't fly somewhere. Now it's been six months since we set foot on an airplane.

We have one grandchild in STL, the redoubtable Ellie. But there are two more in central Michigan we see all too rarely, my son's kids, Audrey, almost 5, and the well-named Atlas, close to a year and a half. We researched this thoroughly and we decided it's okay to visit. (Ellie and our daughter Emily are going along.) Very short flights from here to Chicago and on to Lansing, Michigan. We are on smaller jets with 2-2 and 1-2 seating, no middle seats. We got a stash of N95 masks (Chinese, so we hope they are not fake, but at least they enclose the mouth and nose tightly.) We got sterile, disposable plane seat covers and tray table covers.  We got sterile wipes out to here, purchased before things got bad. We have  an Air BnB cottage with no one else around. So, volare...              

En Route

The first leg of the trip is done. Obviously, we're heading west but about 90 degrees off course. 

Got some good pix of the Grand Canyon from the air, plus crop circles, I don't know what (space aliens tracings in the desert?), a big city and the next airline. A longer leg coming up.

These photos have lots of color distortion from the plane windows.                         

Oh Hell, Oh Hell

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Yow, we weren't singing Christmas carols yesterday.

Plan A was get on a plane in St. Louis, fly to New York's La Guardia airport, pick up rental car and drive about 45 minutes northwest to my sister's house in New Jersey.

Plan Q(4)(f)(iii) turned out to be get on the last plane from St. Louis foolishly allowed to take off for the northeast; get 3/4 of the way there when the captain tells us La Guardia just closed from heavy snow and we're going to Hartford bloody Connecticut; captain tells us New York's Kennedy International Airport just got plowed and is allowing some landings and we're going there; land at JFK in heavy snow an hour after the scheduled arrival at La Guardia; wait an hour for the bags to come up; find that the taxis have all fled; take a big, safe-looking bus to Penn Station; get kicked off the bus at Grand Central Station in the midst of thunder snow and put in a tiny van with way too many other weary souls to the other train station cross-town; get out in blizzard chaos at Penn Station; get on a train to New Jersey; can't find the &^%^%$ next platform at the transfer station until a kindly transit policeman takes pity on us and shows us the way; get on the next train only to be stuck a few minutes later at a frozen switch; eventually get to Ridgewood, NJ, where my brother and brother-in-law meet us in an SUV; fail to get up the last steep hill to my sister's house and hike up the last quarter mile in blizzard conditions.

And now here we are, warm, fed and safe. There may be 2 feet / 61 cm of snow here before it all ends on Monday. Oh, and hurricane force winds here and there overnight. And so to bed.

Above, the view at the Park Avenue South bus transfer point looking toward Grand Central Station. Below, ominous security sign on the NJ Transit train to Ridgewood. Both iPhone photos.

We've Flown Back Home

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It was a long day in the air yesterday, from Tokyo to Dallas-Fort Worth to St. Louis. Now we're back home, heavily jet lagged, but with American comfort food, The Daily Show and Colbert Report, and our own (soft!) bed. Everything went well on the trip - no late airplanes, no getting on the wrong Japanese train, no accidents. Perhaps by this weekend I'll write more detailed notes about our experience in Japan. One thing I can say quickly: we have never visited a country where we were more warmly and courteously received by everyone we met.

This photo above was taken from the ferry departing Niigata for Sado Island, posted here to represent our journey home.

Enjoying Japan but yearning for St. Louis

WHAT I'M FEELING RIGHT NOW: disoriented.
TOMORROW: back to The Lou and, um, probably the Thursday Arch Series.