Off to see my friend Debby in San Francisco this week-end, the Dallas Fort Worth Airport is my layover. My flight went fine but I was surprised to find that it's cold here. Why have I always thought Texas to be warm? Where did that come from? It also appears that it's ugly here. (See fig. 1)
The airport is quite a place. Once I take my shuttle to my connecting terminal and make my way through the streets of tile mosaics of all styles, I turn a corner and find myself in virtually complete mall. There's this skin product called ProActive. Maybe you've seen it on TV. They sell it here. In the airport. Out of vending machines. Weird. I have a lot of time between my flights so I wander around to find the pub of choice. For some reason, being in airports, large ones, make me crave potato skins. I think it became a tradition when I was in school at OU. I would take my hour and a half shuttle ride from Athens to Columbus, and with time to kill, I'd get a bite before getting on my plane headed to Boston. Potato skins apparently became the Columbus Airport tradition.
I find my pub, complete with full Dallas Cowboy interior, but choose to wander some more, as I do have much time to kill. I find the Star-bucks should procuring a delectable frappaccino become necessity. It is very likely. I later learn that just because it seems like a good idea to get a frappaccino doesn't mean one should. Especially in a chilly location. There's a PGA Shop. As in golf. I LIVE ten minutes from an actual PGA National golf club, it's weird see a shop in an airport. This gets me thinking; the PGA National we have in Palm Beach Gardens, is it the only one? Is it THE PGA National? I have no idea.
I pass a currency exchange counter and I feel a pang inside over traveling abroad. I would like to do it again relatively soon, but I don't know when it will happen. I haven't a plan at the moment.
I commit to potato skin location and once I finish my too large (they do make everything bigger in Texas) and not-tasty-enough skins, I wander some more and curse myself for my lack of thorough initial potato skin stake out when I spot TGI Fridays - maker of yummy skins.
For future reference, if you're ever in terminal D at DFW, seek out the TGIFriday's for the skins.
My flight to San Francisco is fine. The plane is huge which I'm taken aback by a bit. I call Debby once the eagle has landed and she waits for me in a cell phone lot until I call her again after I've gotten my bag and head out for a curbside pick-up.
The wait for my bag is a long one. As the flight was full and the plane large the bags just start accumulating on the belt. Piling up on one another, I couldn't help but notice that all the luggage have fallen in a way that makes it very difficult to get at their handles. I visualize the baggage handlers taking out their workplace discontent on us innocent travelers, "Hey Earl, I'm gonna put this purple one upside down AND wrong side up!" That'll show 'em.
A man, about in his 60s, stands next to me and calls someone on his cell, "Yeah, I'm just standing here watching the luggage go around and around. It's not as interesting as when we used to be high and watch them go around and around."
Toto's not in Florida anymore.
I am thrilled to see my friend. It has been four years since we first met and became friends when she was an intern at my paper and I was her mentor. She teases me a bit about getting a flight into San Francisco instead of Oakland, (apparently, when she told me she lives in Oakland, foolish girl assumed I knew there was an airport in Oakland) I enjoy the sight of a new city in a new state while she drives us to dinner.
After out tasty meal of sometimes mysterious dim sum delights in the Richmond District, we drive towards downtown past Union Square. There is far more traffic and people to see here and I find the hills almost a bit scary, I am now so used to flatness. I am so excited just to see someplace different and she has planned so much fun into two days that I actually returned my guidebook before leaving to come here.
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