Sunday, March 18, 2012

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

The state of Maine may lay claim to this saying, but it's mine today. Here's Travis's Spring Break 2012 travel itinerary:

Depart for Spring Break, Saturday, Mar 10:

  • 6:45 AM Arrive Easterwood Airport to board American Airlines flight to Albuquerque via Dallas.
  • 6:50 AM Learn the flight was oversold. No seat for T. Next flight out also oversold. Only a bird is going to fly out of College Station anytime soon.
  • 9:00 AM Take a TAXI for the 2-hour drive to Austin, TX, to catch a flight to Dallas and connect to Albuquerque. FYI: for those of you watching my pennies, American paid for the taxi. They have a contract with the guy. Apparently they need him a lot.
  • 5:00 PM Arrive in Albuquerque. With a time zone change, it's a full 12 hours after arriving at the airport for first oversold flight. Couldn't have driven the distance in that time, but nearly.
After a week in Farmington "packed" with fun, T is set to return to Texas A&M, Sunday, Mar 18:
  • 9:00 AM Depart Farmington, NM, for 3-hour drive to Albuquerque Sunport. 
DIGRESSION: I love the airport's name. Sounds like space travel. We do have alien visitation (real aliens, not Mexicans) in New Mexico, so we are a natural for space travel. We New Mexicans own the first commercial spaceport in the world, Spaceport America, a mere 30 miles SE of Truth or Consequences. Would I lie? 

We have the New Mexico Space Authority. Take THAT Texas, you don't have your own Space Authority! Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is booking flights NOW! Anyone can go. Just click here.


A $20,000 deposit is required. But it is refundable if you have buyer's remorse.


Back to the real travels and travails of Travis:

  • 12:30 PM Arrive at airport for check-in. ALL FLIGHTS have been cancelled or delayed. 

What?! There is no snow.  Joe and Travis were ahead of the predicted snowstorm by hours. But there is  this:
Wind uprooting trees, toppling billboards, Arizona blowing in and reducing visibility to less than half a mile. Maybe jet engines sucking in dirt is also a problem. I know my lungs don't like it. 

Next spot out of Albuquerque to Texas? Maybe Tuesday!
  • 2:00 PM on the road to Santa Fe where a seat on a flight to Dallas is available late Monday morning. Better to hole up in Santa Fe if it snows tonight.
  • 5:00 PM at a showing of John Carter at the Regal Santa Fe Stadium. There wasn't enough Arizona dirt in the New Mexico air for those two. They had to watch a movie about Mars, the desert planet, filmed just a few miles west in Utah. 
I need a drink of water.

1 comment:

  1. As I watched Arizona blow by on Sunday, I was thinking of T!

    ReplyDelete