After a fitful night of sleep, we groggily gathered ourselves for the short ride over to LAX. We were fixing to go to Vermont. As you might imagine, there aren’t exactly direct flights to this region from Los Angeles. There was much debate about which airport to transit through. Washington Dulles looked good, then bad. Philadelphia was an option until it wasn’t. Chicago looked good until it didn’t. And lastly — Atlanta. It was “okay,” in the morning but things would change.
We battled throngs of people at Terminal 5 at LAX. Gate 53B surely must be the worst gate in the entire airport. It requires passing another gate to reach it and is cut off from the main hallway creating a rather clostrophobic environment. American Airlines made the boarding process unnecessarily inefficient and despite initially being issued seats together, we were later split up by the gate agent who mumbled something about an emergency exit. I sat down and my seatmate began to cough (as is customary). It is how people say hello to each other on airplanes.
After a four hour flight to Atlanta, we were dumped out unceremoniously into Terminal T. Every few minutes, an enthusiastic and self-congratulatory announcement was made. “Welcome to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — the busiest and most efficient airport in the world!!!” This claim is highly disputed. Children were shitting their pants. People stopping in the middle of the terminal were flattened. Somewhere in the distance, a man was playing a piano — creating a soundtrack to the chaos. Nicole and I found ourselves in a rolling tide of humanity unable to stop or change direction until finding our way to the underground train where we walked to Terminal A. We made the obligatory stop at Chick-Fil-A and found a relatively quiet gate where we consumed it.
During this time, seats kept disappearing from the Burlington, Vermont flight on Delta. The numbers were no longer favorable to us getting on board. As an alternate, we could get to Albany, New York, but there are no rental cars there. Two late-checking-in standbys sniped the last two available seats on the plane. For a moment it looked like one person wasn’t going to show up, which would have worked because I was dressed dapper enough to ride in the jumpseat. But at the very last moment, some old geezer showed up and took the very last seat. Game over for Burlington — evidently the place to be flying to right now.
And so, we walked back to Terminal T, canceled our rental car, created a new Delta listing to Albany, got a new rental car for the next day (no rental cars tonight in Albany as you know), and had to cancel a beekeeping experience that Nicole wanted to do tomorrow morning. Poor Nicole. Poor bees. For the standby traveler, there is no destination too exotic or out of reach, and here we are boarding a flight to . . . Albany. One couldn’t find a hotel there for less than $300 per night even next to the airport. This is all very peculiar.
Having spent nearly five hours in the Atlanta airport, it was at least a relatively short 1h45 min flight to Albany. There were a lot of children onboard and all of them were either farting, soiling themselves, or screaming — maybe all three at the same time. Our nearby seatmates coughed and cleared their throats to welcome us to our seats. A long day of travel finally ended when our Lyft took us to the Hampton Inn by the airport. We had secured the last room, which is for the mobility-impaired, but also included a Peloton in the room (just in case).
The day rolled over to the 27th and I texted Nicole, “Happy Birthday!!!” while still in the Lyft. Hopefully today/tomorrow is more chill and relaxed for her now that we won’t have to deal with the Atlanta airport any more.
passports & pepto bismol 