Travel Day

July 8, 2008

Well, it was a planes, trains, automobile, and bus sort of day. With the exception of the last 1 hour, it was mass transit. I walked to our local light rail and took the train to downtown LA. One stop before the end, the train came to a complete stop. The conductor got out of the compartment and walked outside the train to the end. She boarded on the other end and walked through the whole train and checked every panel in every car. While she was walking past me, the call came through on her radio that there was a train (ours) stalled on the tracks in Chinatown. It wouldn’t have been very far to walk from there, but we weren’t really AT the station. Fortunately, when she got back to the front, she started it up and we rolled into the final stop.
With the delay, I barely made it to the shuttle in time. I was starting to re-evaluate my decision that I didn’t REALLY need 2 hours at the airport. When I got to the terminal, I was completely disappointed American Airlines. They now charge you $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second bag. I knew this was the case, but you’d think that, if they are making between $15-40 per person, they could actually have humans at the counter. There are now 3 lines you need to stand in before security. The first line is to self check in and you get your boarding pass. Then you stand in line again to check in your bags (the line I chose didn’t move for 25 minutes). The final line is to give your bags to the TSA for them to scan. During the middle line, I was behind a couple with a little boy. As we began to move, an old woman with a walker kept merging into the line between the couple and me. I didn’t really feel it would be appropriate for me to fight her for the space, but then I realized she really was with the couple in front of me. I was glad I hadn’t been completely selfish:-)

I’ve traveled enough to know better than this, but when I got to my gate, there was no one there, even thought the plane was leaving in a ½ hour. I figured I could sit down and charge my iPod. I’m sitting, completely settled in, when the “Final Boarding Call” comes over the speaker for X, Y, and Medendorp. They had changed my gate. Yikes!! I almost missed my plane. I was the last one on and then we took off!!! When I landed, I got my shuttle bus to Michigan City, Indiana, and then I drove home with Mom and Aunt Alice. They had spent the day finding some bargains at the outlet mall.