Saturday, July 26, 2008

Returnin' From a Jet Plane

A quick post-trip update: I've been back for a few days now, but I wanted to make sure I said to everyone, "thanks for the support." To answer Mr. Rex10's question in the comments to the original post, I went to Memphis, which was a very short little jaunt. In fact, the trip over was more like riding in a flying bus than a bike - I'm pretty sure there were a total of 53 seats on the plane, including the pilot and co-pilot's seats and the bathroom. I did mention to the flight staff on the first one that I hadn't flown since 1988, and they tried their best to be accommodating. I also had some "less-drowsy" formula Dramamine, which I took about an hour before each flight, and I guess it worked like a charm. I sat by the window on both flights. What an amazing experience! I loved watching the clouds and landscape from above, and coming back over the big city at night was just beautiful! I will definitely not be anxious about flying in the future, should the situation arise again. It was a very good experience, except for when I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag before running it through the scanner on the way back, and the shocked security lady yelled out, "Who has a laptop in a BAG?" as if this was the most ridiculous place to keep a laptop she'd ever heard of, and only a colossal moron would leave one there at a security checkpoint. Oh, and while that was going on, security on the other end was running the cable tester through a full-scale bomb detection process (according to the inspector: "the machine can be setup to check for drugs as well, but we don't care about drugs; you can keep your drugs"). Those were embarrassing, but the rest of the trip I wouldn't mind going through again.


P.S. to Mr. Rex10: You need to know about this.

1 comment:

Rex10 said...

Davis, thanks for the update and I am glad to hear it went well. I am guessing you were flying in the CRJ-500 - a 50 passenger cigar tube in the sky. A great plane when the skies are clear...just don't ask me about the time I was coming in from Toronto in a storm and the thing dropped a thousand feet or so. A white-knuckler if there ever was one. Or don't ask me about the pilot, or should I say flight jockey, on a trip from San Antonio who got "all of a 120 knot tailwind" (his words) and had us at over 600 mph at around 39,000 feet. So...we were in a flying cigar tube almost moving at the speed of sound in near sub-space. One good turbulent bump and I could have been the first space tourist.

P.S. I AM the Trombone Hero!