Flying to Florida

The first leg of my journey to Florida passed through the beautiful Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. They actually employ a rail system like Las Vegas uses to trundle people from one casino to the next, only the Dallas airport rail takes you from gate terminal complex to gate terminal complex. Thinking I had all the time in the world, I waited until near boarding time to discover by airport video display I was a rail system away from the gate my next flight left from. Imagine having an over three hour layover, only to end up running through the airport as if in an old Hertz rent-a-car commercial.

Next up, Miami International, where after being in Dallas, I thought I’d arrived in Bogata, Columbia. Really, the only thing missing from Miami International to make it appear I had been transported into the middle of the old movie ‘Romancing The Stone’ was there were no people carrying livestock through the terminal building. I found the gate where the ‘puddle jumper’ would be taking me to my Sarasota destination. The nice lady there put me on a bus with only a couple seats at the back for the infirm; and rails for the rest of us to cling to, while they drove us out to the propeller driven Sarasota bound plane awaiting us. Think the airplane in ‘Major League’, where the Cleveland Indians arrived at the airport, and the pilot was readying their plane by duct taping the propeller.

I flew aboard ‘Indiana Jones’ airliner into Sarasota Airport safely, and with my luggage. This feat, to me, surpassed in complexity the recent ‘soft’ landing on Mars by our latest space ship. The incredible workings capable of taking me and my bag together through this aviation pilgrimage from Oakland, CA, where I said adieu to my bag at 4:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, to Florida at 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, boggles the mind. I had an aisle seat all the way with no kids near me on the flight, so I’m not gripin’. My sister’s main home reminded me of the places I walked around gawking at when I traveled by way of Florida to the New Orleans Mardi Gras in 1973. The cops cut my sightseeing short back then. I made it about a block before they put me in the back of their squad car, checked my military reserve ID (I’d only been out a few months at the time), and let me go with a warning never to walk around the area again. They did explain there had been a series of burglaries, and I wasn’t being profiled for ‘Walking While Raggedy’. Anyway, my sister’s holdings in Florida are gorgeous. I’m glad I didn’t bring my wife with me. After seeing my sister’s house, she’d torture me for the rest of my days. :)