Travel Update

Well, here I am in South Dakota. The first flight (to Denver) wasn’t too bad, except for the company & the landing. The guy sitting next to me kept complaining about how small the seats were (and they are small) and kept trying to talk to me. I get that this talking thing is something that happens in airplanes, but I’m stuck in the middle of two of my biggest fear issues – strangers and flying. I do not want to talk to anyone, unless you are Johnny Depp or Jake Gyllenhaal or Salma Hayek or something. And then, I really just want to look at you and drool.

So, my chatty seatmate, who I ignored for 3 hours, had a legitimate complaint about the seat. He weighed well over 400 pounds and kept spilling over into my (aisle) seat. I have a bruise on my left breast from the constant elbowing. 🙁

And then, there was the landing. I hate landing in Denver (which otherwise is a very nice city with a decent airport). There was quite a bit of turbulence during the landing, more than usual, actually.

Approximately 2 1/2 hours later, I was ready for flight #2 (after girding my loins with beer). They started boarding, and we walked down that little hallway thing to the plane. And then we stopped. They wouldn’t let us on the plane. Why? you might ask. Because the passengers from the last flight were still on it. However, they also wouldn’t let us back into the airport.

So we were stuck in that hot, stupid little hell hall. After about 10 minutes (when some stupid guy kept trying to talk to me and ask me questions about the size of my iPod), the other passengers got off, and then we were able to board the meat locker puddle jumper.

We pushed back from the gate, and the captain came on. “Sorry folks, but it looks like we’re not leaving yet. Apparently they shorted us on fuel, and we don’t have enough to make it to Sioux Falls. Good thing we noticed before we got in the air! ha ha!”

Most people didn’t seem to think that was funny, but it was hard to tell, what with all the frozen smiles.

About ten minutes into the flight, the captain comes back on to announce that we are 45 minutes away from Sioux Falls, and that the flight will be very turbulent the rest of the way.

And it was.

I just listened to my iPod with my eyes closed and tried to pretend that I was in a car on a less-than-well maintained county road. That worked until my imaginary car was involved in an earthquake and then fell into the resulting chasm in the road.

People were shrieking. Someone prayed out loud. Since I’m more of a “quiet terror” kinda person, I did neither, but it was very unnerving. At times like this (because this happens almost every time), I like to watch the flight attendant. I’ve decided that if it’s ever going to be really bad, she will sit down and put her own seatbelt on. And she didn’t, so I was mildly reassured.

Also, going to Fear of Flying yesterday before my flight helped immensely. Thank you for the advice.

So, here I am, and it’s 3 days before I have to do it all again. I don’t know if I will get to update for the rest of the weekend, because we are leaving Sioux Falls today to travel further inland, and somehow I think my hotel on the Rez is not gonna have free wireless.

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