Hours of Daylight – 14:18

Wifi is hard to come by in Chicago’s O’Hare airport. One would think various providers would be tripping over themselves to provide access, but they’re not. From my seat here in United’s B concourse only a very week t-mobile signal is sporadically reaching my computer. At no time was it ever strong enough to get to the webpage where I would fork over my credit card number. So, yet again, I get to withhold my money and not get online. No big deal I suppose. It’s not like I was working on an online cure for cancer and every moment I’m not connected to the internet was lost research time.

Despite getting off to a rocky beginning this trip has proven, from where I sit, a complete success. Flying from BOI can be a sketchy affair. Very few trips originate at BOI and there is a short list of places you can go directly, so travelers are at the mercy of incoming flights and almost always, at least, one transfer. Of course that’s a very east-coast-centric way for me to describe the fights from BOI. One can fly directly to Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, San Francisco plus other central and western locations. But for other than recreation those airports do little for me. This most recent trip was a bit problematic from the start. First, we needed to get to Syracuse, NY (decidedly east from Boise), second it’s small-market to small-market flying.

We arrived at the check in desk at BOI reasonably early, but we knew there was trouble right away. People weren’t using the check in terminals. Annette asked the man in front of us, “are the terminals not working?”

“Not if you’re going to Chicago.” I couldn’t help notice he looked like a less scary version of G. Gordon Liddy. That he was wearing a “President Bush Inauguration” shirt (the kind you can’t buy in the gift shop) sort of helped with look.

Turns out the flight we were looking for to get us to O’Hare hadn’t even left O’Hare to come to Boise due to mechanical issues. The outbound delay was, at that moment’s best guess, 4 hours. There was no way we’d make our connection out of O’Hare for Syracuse. Fortunately the desk attendant was on her game and willing to work with us. She booked us on a Delta flight into Salt Lake City where we would be able to connect with a United flight to O’Hare, and, hopefully, make the last flight to Syracuse. Thing is she was unable to get us seats on the Syracuse flight. There was only one confirmed seat available. We opted for standby with the O’Hare Hilton as our backup.

The flight to Salt Lake was on an aging 737 that I swear had to be early 80’s vintage. It was one tired aircraft that was configured for maximum passengers. The leg room was tighter than on the teeny CRJ7’s into which we’d soon be squished.

The route from BOI to SLC essentially followed the route we had driven five months earlier. We departed to the west, did a steep climbing right and leveled out heading east over i84. We flew just north of Mountain Home AFB, then turned south-east towards Salt Lake. I was on the right side of the plane and was treated to a full tour of the Great Salt Lake with its unnatural mish-mosh of colors. Scarlet expanses faded to snow white salt where the water had evaporated. After clearing the causeway that bisects the lake the water became a more reassuring shade of blue. But even that was quickly displaced by swirls of green, brown and gray that looked inspired by the deadly radioactive scum filling sections of the video game Half Life 2. Moments later more lavender evaporating ponds were set next to bright green ponds whose contents could only be guessed at. After touring the coast of the lake we abruptly turned east and headed up the valley towards the airport and city of Salt Lake passing over the ruins of mountains now reduced to terraced man-made crags and smelter slag; the legacy of generations of mining.

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Flash forward to the return trip, and “random thoughts from O’Hare.”

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Ok, so we’ve been here since about 10am. It’s now 3:11pm. What happened? Nothing bad. We actually elected to get bumped to a later flight. Hell, it’s not like we’re in a major hurry to get back to Boise and it’s worth two free flights in the lower 48. Plus she gave us $20 in meal vouchers.

Checking the departure screens, I scan the B’s…. Boise is all by itself right before a flurry of “Boston.” Boise. I have to say I never expected to be looking for Boise on the departure screens of an airport.

O’Hare is huge. It goes on forever. I’ve only walked as far at the G concourse, and I’ve not ventured down any of the fingers extending from the various concourses, but I feel I’ve walked several miles. While big O’Hare is very old-school. The main concourse has the “age of empire” feel to it. Very postwar, modern design. Poured structural concrete, circular layout with terrazzo and stainless steel. Other concourses were clearly grafted on at different times. The E concourse where we came in is the worst of the bunch. It reeks of 70’s design: faded multi-color carpeting in a much smaller and more “human scale” corridor; the polar opposite of “Empire.” As expected the carpet is disgusting from years of foot traffic and is slowly being replaced with terrazzo.

There are a phenomenal number of people crossing here. Not unlike midtown NYC at lunch time I feel if I sit here long enough I’ll see somebody I know.

I’m kind of surprised to see the crowds are overwhelmingly white/asian.

There are many airlines here I’ve never heard of. Several are cargo lines. Polar, for example, flies very clean white 747’s.

A gray A320 just pulled up to the gate opposite from where I’m sitting. It’s labeled Trans-Canada Air Lines in a very “1950’s Airline” font.. It also has Air Canada painted in smaller letters so I’m guessing there is a relationship there. Ironically a plain white Air Canada CRJ200 is pulled in right behind it. One has to wonder which one is the regional aircraft, which one is the long-haul flyer?

There are many advertisements adorning the walls for business consulting systems. They all promise to make your business run smoother and be a happier place to spend your life. It would seem, based on the cell phone calls I’ve overheard, that most of the business travelers passing through here don’t use any of these services. Most are arguing over failed communication issues that have somehow snowballed. “I don’t fucking get this! I sent her a fucking email. Two emails!”

Not that many people travel with children. The ones who are traveling with children seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. And, for the most part, the kids are remarkably well-behaved. A short walk from where I’m typing this there’s a woman camped on the floor with three small kids all watching a DVD on a laptop. I don’t know what they’re watching but the kids are enthralled and the mother, while looking pretty tired, is clearly relieved to have them occupied.

White people should be prevented from attempting dreadlocks.

Air travel has long since ceased being a “dress up” affair.

Asian men with little stubby Bluetooth headsets look like characters from some bleak near-future Manga.

Gary Winogrand was right: women are beautiful.

The CRJ is a good choice for regional jet service. From the passenger’s point of view it actually has more leg room than some bigger jets. It’s very fuel efficient, can cruise at high altitudes, has state-of-the-art navigation and control systems with thrust-reversers, can fly into small airports, and is comparatively quiet. It’s a little cramped inside and has very little space for carry-on baggage, but for short-haul flights I’d rather be on a CRJ than an old 737.