The Conical Glass: Fortunately, I have a very hard head

Monday, April 23, 2007

Fortunately, I have a very hard head

Regular readers of this blog -- how many are there now, 12? -- are all too familiar with my flying phobia, so this is an extra-spectacular edition of "The Conical Glass" being written at 30,000 feet! It's turbulent and the "fasten seat belt" sign is on! You can almost smell the excitement, can't you? (If you were sitting next to me, you might be able to smell something, since I'm sweating like a pig.)

All dozen of you also know that I try not to let my discomfort stop me from traveling. I fly an average of three times a year. It's only April and this is already my second trip of the year; I went to Florida in January. I love to visit new locales and often the only way I can do so is by getting onto a plane. A few weeks ago, my parents offered me the chance to visit Minneapolis, a city I'd never had the opportunity to see, so a couple weeks ago, I decided to go. My mom was going to be attending a conference there, and a ton of special activities were planned -- sightseeing expeditions, banquets, interesting programs. Plus, one of my oldest friends moved to Minneapolis a year ago and I was eager to visit her.

So on Wednesday, I was scheduled to fly nonstop from San Francisco to Minneapolis at the rather civilized hour of 10 AM. I usually wake up pretty early when I'm going to be traveling so I was already checking my email at 7 when my phone rang. It was my dad. For some reason, when he was checking on his flight from Michigan to Minnesota, he also checked on my flight, and -- guess what -- it had been canceled! Unspecified "mechanical difficulties" were the reason. For about a minute, it seemed like a perfect excuse to just bag the whole thing, but no, I decided to press on. After about 15 minutes on the phone with a Northwest representative, I was able to rebook, flying out of Oakland instead of SFO and changing planes in Salt Lake City. My new flight was scheduled to arrive just over 2 hours after the original one. It was a bit of a hassle; I was randomly flagged for the extra security screening at Oakland (lucky me!), so not only did I get to take my shoes off, but a TSA employee wiped a little cloth all over them to make sure there was no explosive residue on them! They also checked out my backpack, somehow missing the potentially-deadly bottle of contact lens solution that lurked therein. But I finally got into MSP without any major difficulties.

I had a fabulous time in Minneapolis. I visited the amazing Institute of Art, toured the brand-new Guthrie Theater, had a wonderful visit to the American Swedish Institute, walked around the Lake of the Isles, and attended a fascinating presentation about the history of Swedish immigration to the Twin Cities. Minnesota people also lived up to their "nice" reputation -- one of my hobbies is touring state capitols, and someone pointed out a young lady at one of our banquets who worked there, suggesting that she might be able to tell me how to get there via bus. This woman, who had never met me before, instantly volunteered to spend her Saturday morning driving me there and taking me on a personal tour of the capitol building! I took her up on it and had a really fun time. She dropped me off at the local mystery bookstore, where I had a pleasant chat with the proprietor, who gave me a free paperback (I bought three) because, since I was an out-of-towner, I wasn't going to be able to participate in the store's buy-10, get-one-free program. See what I mean? NICE! As was the case when I visited Albuquerque last fall, I instantly began fantasizing about moving there. I tried to remind myself that while it was 70 degrees during my visit, there had been a snowstorm just a couple weeks earlier.

Minneapolis is a really exciting, cosmopolitan city with a vibrant cultural scene. I don't think even the most jaded urbanite would feel deprived there. At some point, I'd love to go back and see some of the more rural parts of the state. On my last day, my parents and I took the light rail (just $1.50 from downtown, and it's on the honor system -- Minnesotans are too nice not to pay the fare!) to the airport and checked our luggage, then got back on the light rail (your ticket is good for 2 1/2 hours!) and rode two more stops to the Mall of America, which for some reason I felt compelled to visit. True to form, the only thing my mom and I bought were two postcards, which we sent to my aunt & uncle in Sweden. We did eat lunch there, at the Wolfgang Puck Express, so all in all, we managed to spend around $30 on our expedition.

Afterwards, we headed back to the airport to get on our respective flights. As is the case with EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT I take nowadays, the plane from MSP-SFO was completely full. Since no one wants to check their enormous suitcases, they all lug them on and roam up and down the aisle of the plane looking for space in the overhead bin. The one above me was totally full, so someone had closed it. However, that didn't stop one guy from opening it to see if there was room for his enormo-case. The next thing I knew, I felt the most horrible pain. I started screaming. What the hell just happened? A suitcase -- not just any suitcase, but a METAL SUITCASE -- had fallen right on my head, because someone had shoved it up there rather precariously, and someone else had opened the overhead compartment. It came tumbling down, right on my skull.

Funnily enough, at the airport, my mom and I had just been talking about the daughter of a friend of hers who had suffered a head injury after falling off a bike, and whether or not she had a concussion. A couple flight attendants came rushing over to make sure I was OK. A few minutes later, a Northwest representative came aboard the plane to ask me if I wanted to see a paramedic. No, I did NOT want to see a paramedic. I just wanted to go home. I had been reading the New York Times Magazine and the print wasn't blurry or anything, so I figured I could proceed. It hurt like hell, though. One of the flight attendants brought me some aspirin and a glass of water before the plane took off. When the beverage service came through later, I got a free gin and tonic. Injuring your head on an aircraft = a savings of $5!

Last fall, Joe and I drove our little car from the Bay Area to Albuquerque, which took almost two full days and was occasionally boring as all get-out, but I think there's something to be said for road trips. I realize driving is a far more dangerous form of transportation than flying, and an hour in the air is the equivalent of 9-10 hours of driving. But I enjoyed seeing the passing scenery and not being in such a rush. We were able to change our plans at the drop of a hat. It was one of the best vacations I ever took.

This morning at breakfast, my dad was talking about how when he was a kid, his family would sail from New York to Europe on an ocean liner. Like me, my farfar (grandfather) was self-employed, and there were no computers in those days allowing him to keep in constant touch with his office. I'm sure transatlantic phone calls were extremely expensive too, so it's not like he was able to check in all the time. Going on a trip to Europe meant taking off at least a couple of months. The last several trips I've made to Europe have all been shorter than two weeks. I suspect there aren't many ocean crossings these days; who wants to take the time, when you can just get on a plane in San Francisco and disembark in London 11 hours later? Similarly, why would I want to spend 3 days driving to Minnesota when I can fly there in just over 3 hours?

As my plane flies over the West, though, I can't help but reflect on everything I'm missing down below. Some of it's dull -- I've driven across Wyoming; I know from dull -- but a lot of it is beautiful and memorable and fun. The scenery may not have been particularly dynamic, but I remember how excited I was to find a great NPR station in Wyoming, and how good it felt to listen to the familiar tones of All Things Considered as mile after mile whizzed by, Joe sound asleep in the passenger seat. It was peaceful in a way that air travel, with its falling metal suitcases and its screaming children and its constantly illuminated fasten-seat-belt signs, never is. Our leisurely drive last fall was a spectacular rarity that came about because of Joe's once-every-five-years sabbatical (something few American workers enjoy; believe me, I appreciate it). It saddens me to think that we may have to wait another four years to travel the same way my grandparents did 60 years ago -- slowly, deliberately, enjoying the scenery along the way.

posted by 125records @ 12:00 AM

3 Comments:

At 12:41 AM, neal said…

When we had a return visit from the Tuvan throat singing group Chirgilchin, they came by train from Chicago. I commented what a long ride that must be, and Sasha said "Not bad, it is nice. We do it a lot." Turns out they go back to Tuva every year, but won't fly. So it's train, boat, train. That's got to be a 2 week trip, one way! Of course, they never seemed in a rush to get anywhere either!
At 8:27 PM, 2fs said…

I do like traveling by car, or train; the problem is accumulating enough vacation time, or funding, to be able to do so. The key is, of course, to recognize that the drive is part of the vacation; that you're not merely en route to somewhere, you're exactly where you should be.

Anyway, my sister and family live in in Minneapolis, so we get up there a couple times a year (we're going up this weekend - damn, too bad we didn't coordinate those trips!). It is indeed a lovely city...but yes, its winters are grueling and lo-o-o-ong - even longer and colder than ours here in Milwaukee.
At 6:31 PM, yellojkt said…

The upper midwest (Michigan to the Dakotas) is the one part of the country I haven't been to yet. I'm dying to get up there.