Monday, June 04, 2007

Got them Lower 48 Can't Sleep Blues

So we've gone "outside" as the Alaskans say and have returned to West Virginia, jetlagged, sore and covered in cat fur. The trip home was largely uneventful, which is how I like my 15 hour trips to be. Delta even went so far as to feed us, which I thought was mighty nice of them and a rare event in airlines these days. (I got no more than a couple bags of mini-pretzels and some tomato juice out of U.S. Air on the way up.) The food was good, even.

Our only major trouble out of the trip happened after we'd landed in Charlotte and discovered that we had no idea where Ashley's car was parked. Three weeks ago, when she first flew out, Ash left the little card telling her where she parked in her car on the premise that she wouldn't be able to find it anyway after three weeks. She would just remember where she parked. Long term parking lots, however, look very different in broad daylight than they do at 3 a.m. and we soon found that we were the last ones on the airport shuttle bus.

"If you can tell me where your car is parked, I'll take you there," the annoyed driver said.

"If I knew where my car was parked, I would have just gotten off there," Ashley responded.

After another loop around the lot and more running commentary about the wisdom of remembering where you parked from the driver, (Does this look like where you parked it? What about this? Does this look familiar? What about THIS anonymous ocean of cars?) Ashley told her, "There. There it is. I see my car. It's here. Stop here." Then, once we and our bags were deposited in the lot and the shuttle had driven away, Ashley said, "I have no idea where my car is. I just couldn't deal with any more from her." Fortunately, it wasn't far away and she soon located it and was gracious enough to come back and pick me up despite my poor attitude on the subject of losing one's car.

Right now, it's 1 a.m., but my jetlagged brain tells me that it's only 9 p.m., so here I sit a typin' away when I should have long since been in bed.

I've now had a chance to restructure the post card entries, revising them to reflect the dates on which they were taken and adding some text and a number of new pictures to boot. Have a look.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to drop you a line to say that I loved the Alaska photos and commentary! I was just there last June, near Fairbanks.

Photos here: http://www.vogelein.com/JanerBlog/archives/2006/06/ (Scroll down a few pages)

Jane Irwin
www.vogelein.com


An employee of a small town "liberry" chronicles his quest to remain sane while dealing with patrons who could star in a short-lived David Lynch television series.