Homeward Bound

Like John Denver once sang, "Hey it's great to be back home again". We boarded our plane out of LAX at 5:30 Pacific time this morning. At about 8:45AM the wheels finally left the ground. It seems there was a malfunctioning warning alarm with no corresponding telltale sign of anything wrong. So after driving the plane around the airport (I think they were ordered to check to see what kind of gas mileage they could get) while the crew reset a few circuit breakers we finally arrived back at the gate.

But before I finish the story, I must go back in time to our original departure date for our trip to La La land.

While I sat wondering how loud the baby behind me was going to be (actually not bad) and mostly ignoring the safety Nazi's presentation for people too stupid to figure out how to slide the silver slot into the buckle, the kid in the window seat pondered (out loud) how cool it would be to crash land in the water. My thought was that it would not really be cool at all and the longer I sat on the plane I was wishing that I had a fatter ass or the cushion had more padding.

When we finally got to Denver, it seems everyone at the airport there was surprised that a plane had landed. After our taxi ride to the gate, quite rudely, no one was waiting for us.....no one at the Jetway. This was the 2nd time in two tries through Denver that the entire airport staff was astounded that a plane would have to audacity to show up unannounced. The first time we had snow removal equipment blocking the path to the gate and when we got to our connection the door was closed and the local agent would not let us on, even though the posted departure time was still 10 minutes away. Needless to say, we have become somewhat disenchanted with the crew at DIA. I'm not even going to get into our rental car experience!

Now back to the future, today that is. In one respect we were fortunate even though there was a 2 1/2 hour delay from LAX (I must disregard the fact that the only nourishment available was an old, stale biscotti and a couple of breakfast bars). Our fortune rested on the 3 1/2 hour layover in Denver. We had hoped to get some food there but when we finally arrived we had about 20 minutes (and 8 gates to go) before our next plane departed. When we got to the designated gate, guess what????? --- no plane, no agent, no nothing. So, being the curious type I went back to check the departure monitor again and yep, there it was, Omaha - gate 45 but still there was no one and nothing there. I finally found an agent willing to talk although I had clearly annoyed him by interrupting his flirtation with a young lady and he pointed to a gate that said the flight for Oklahoma City was now boarding. Since it stared with an O we decided to give it a chance and lo and behold we found gold.

Remember the baby (above)? Well I found another one on the last leg and I specifically remember asking to be seated in the no baby zone. The poor thing (about 4 months old) did not like to fly but the noise he made was not as irritating as the tinker bell flight attendant breaking up ice was. I think he was using a chopstick to break it up and I could picture him crawling down the isle with a large stick up his bum (tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap)...enough already.

The moral of this story is if you must travel (fly), don't go through Denver, they won't be expecting you and also try to avoid LAX, there are just to many people. I must say though that they do a good job of moving people through checkout and security at LAX. I think they got their training at Disneyland.