Journey into Darkness

I'm back from my 4 day trip to Kansas and would like to say I survived with both my mental and physical health intact, but I do feel a little groggy and hungover. I didn't really drink very much so I'm blaming my frazzled state on an excess consumption of chain restaurant food, cigarettes, hours and hours of Bravo watching, the excessive humidity and the annoyances of airports and air travel in general...I didn't post anything while I was ON my trip, so here's a rough synopsis of how it went, in diary form:

Friday, the 12th: Got up at the ungodly hour of 3:15 in the morning in order to catch a bus to the airport...I missed my bus by about 30 seconds, so I had to call a cab to get downtown to catch the 194 to the airport. I made it, with about 1 minute to spare and thoroughly do not enjoy my journey which consists largely of drunk, smelly people on their way home after a night of binge drinking and drugs in the alleyways of downtown Seattle. There is a smattering of airport bound travellers and a couple airport workers, but for the most part, it's a bunch of drunks and the indigent. The bus smells like a cheap shoe that a chronic alcoholic has repeatedly vomited, shat and pissed upon. But, I have a bus pass and it's free, so who am I to complain?

I get to the airport, breeze through security and onto the plane...about a half hour in to the flight, I'm jonesing for a smoke, so I pop some nicotine gum into my mouth, kindly supplied by a friend of mine. Unfortunately, I've never tried nicotine gum before and I seem to have a reaction to it; my throat starts closing up and I feel like throwing up. I quickly spit it out and decide it was probably dumb to use nicotine gum only 45 minutes after chain smoking 4 cigarettes outside the terminal...

I have to change planes in Denver and fortunately, the kind souls in the Colorado state legislature put in a clause in their indoor smoking ban/law that provides for a smoking lounge in the airport...it's attached to a tacky airport bar/restaurant and you're required to buy something to sit in there, but I don't begrudge them $2.50
for a Pepsi and a chance to chain smoke in between flights. I grab an overpriced turkey/cranberry sandwich, buy a new book and catch my flight to KC.

I'm met at the gate by my gracious hosts, my longtime friend Kelly and her boyfriend Aaron and quickly readapt to the torpid humidity of the Midwest...it's about 70 degrees with 99% humidity and gray and rainy when I land. The irony of Seattle having nicer (meaning warmer, sunnier and drier) weather than the Midwest, is not lost on me...

Oh, and the Seattle airport gets an A for their food/retail, (Love the Border's Bookstore) and Denver gets a C for a rotten selection of food options but a decent bookstore, and Kansas City gets an F for very rotten selection of food and NO bookstores.

More to come.

Photo by ME, all rights reserved.