Coming Home: Lake Michigan [enlarge photo]
Ohhh the glories of business travel. Yuck! Business travel is just not glamorous. Not anymore anyway. Was it ever? Yes I was signaled out for a “random” security check at MPLS airport. Fewer things are as embarrassing as removing your belt and having people grope you while only a few feet away the security lottery winners gaze askew and wonder what kind of detonation device is built into the hard drive of your power book. For the rest of the flight, I’m now a marked man. I have some sort of security born plague. Tinny forgotten coins lurking deep in my pockets give off alarming beeps and twerps when passed under the sweeping detection devices. I can only think of Spinal Tap, let out a hint of laughter, and get probed and groped more forcefully as a result. Denver.
An hour and a half later still bruised and malignant, we touch down in Chicago. Whoooaaa!! Not once, but twice, three times, the plane now leaning heavily left. The pilot corrects and we bounce again. Four in total. Holy Shit the pilot literally bounced the plane on landing. I’ve done my fair share of airtime. This was beyond amateur. It was a ghetto landing. Worse yet, the pilot comes over the intercom and says his usual bit about “I hope you enjoy your stay in Chicago…etc, etc,” and then says, “No charge for the extra couple of landing”. Jigga what? Jokes? I’m still in shock and scribing a letter to ATA airlines the minute this missive is brought to a close.
But enough negativity. Philly was incredible. From what I saw. For many reasons, everything pretty much looked like this. The train system was super. fast. It made me realize how much we need that sorta thing in the Twin Cities. The Downtown was very cosmopolitan. Lots of street activity at night, very pedestrian friendly. People actually stay in the city at night and it’s easy to walk from pub to ice cream shop, to the really well named record store, Funk-O-Matic. The train stop Market East has a really wonderful mosaic mural too.
Upstate Pennsylvania was really lush and rolling. I’d love to go back and do some hiking and camping in those hills. But maybe I’ll take the train out there next time. The flying thing has lost all its romanticism.