Tulsa, Oklahoma

TULSA is quite the metropolitan destination and the airport fit right in. I arrived right on time (yay) and quickly met up with keli's parents. we had about 30 minutes to kill until keli landed, so we wandered around and quickly stumbled across this vending machine. i had to take a picture of course....have you EVER seen this? it delivers piping hot food right to you?! i didn't know whether to be grossed out or totally in love.

has anyone tried one of these before? i'm curious how they heat it all up and deliver it at the perfect temperature? i would have tried myself, but this one was out of order, and i didn't discover there was another one there until too late. sad. maybe next year i'll try it!

the week in oklahoma (at keli's family lakehouse) was great! lots of sun, reading, relaxing, beerade, and fun.

let's fast forward to the departure from tulsa....

so...we were flying out on monday afternoon (keli to DC, and me to Chicago). when we came in from the lake to shower and clean up, i notice i have like 3 missed calls and voicemails from united. bad sign. the first one says my flight is delayed, the 2nd one says my flight is actually cancelled, and the 3rd one is a nice friendly man at the tulsa airport telling me my options. he has rebooked me on a 2pm flight (my flight was at 5 originally), and says the 2pm is already so delayed that even if i arrive at 4...i'll get on it fine. so...ok. nothing to worry about? sounds like i'm all set! great!

we arrive at the airport, keli leaves right on time, and i realize my flight (the 2pm) is now delayed until 7-something. so i go have some food (not the tyson machine), and hang out and read. then i notice its delayed more. apparently (i had no idea) the worst storm in years was pummeling chicago (ie - when i was talking to my friend on the phone...the tornado sirens were all going off downtown, they evacuated wrigley field, trees blowing down all over town, etc....very bad). needless to say, total ground stop in effect.

i honestly have no idea how i killed time - i think i have purged this memory from my mind. all of a sudden, it's 9. we board the plane, back up, and start taxiing. ohhhhhhhhhhh wait...not so fast....captain comes on the horn says ground stop is back in effect, we're going back to the gate. at this point, i would have rather just sat on the plane, as tiny and squished as it was. but that wasn't an option. so back to the gate we go....back to the bar i go. i needed a beer. badly.

finally, we end up leaving at like 1130 or so. the flight was so scary...i have never seen lightning like that. it was just constant. not flashes, but like the lights were on up in the sky. spooky!

so...we land, the cab line is of course a total hell hole (and sorry...i know i'm trying to be fiscally responsible here, but....im not taking the el home at 2am...no way jose). so the cabbie turns onto my street, and it's like we're staring straight into hell. there are trees (big ones...whole entire trees, not little wimpy branches) all in my street...and not a light in sight. that's right folks, no power. (note - the power didn't come back on until WEDNESDAY...which for those of you who can add well....that's 3 days of no power). so i have to use my cell phone like a flashlight to go up my stairs (and most of you know that i'm like the biggest scaredy cat wussy in the WORLD about the dark). then i walk into my spooky pitch dark apartment and crash. the cabbie nicely offered to walk me up to my place....um, pass.

so tulsa....you were good to me during my delay. i think it's pretty weak that your only food-serving establishment closes at 630, but hey...i dont make the decisions. your bar stayed open later, which i appreciated. and your magazine store didn't dissapoint, even if the girl had no idea what she was doing and asked if 'details' was a book. and yes, i know details is for closeted gay men, but i wanted to read about james mcevoy. no dice.

Boston!

overdue post alert! well, i promised you guys some good blogs about my airport experiences, and im finally here to deliver. and lucky you...you're going to get a load of posts today.

first off...boston!

so my flight to boston was pretty uneventful except that it was about 5 hours late due to weather in boston. i was on a 6pm flight, and was supposed to land at like 9 or so but ended up getting more and more and more delayed as the night went on. there were about 5 flights from ohare to boston all delayed...so i at least felt better that i wasn't on the 2pm flight...which was also still there. (sidenote - several days after the flight, i got a 'personal' email from united apologizing for the delay, which i thought was a nice, if generic, touch.)

the interesting part of the story is that there was a huge group of travelers with a lot of kids on my flight....and the kids were all laying on the seats sleeping. each kid taking up 2 seats. so essentially, there is nowhere for any of the adults to sit. i found this to be pretttty unacceptable that the gate agents would allow this, so i just went and sat at another gate, but was kind of fired up about it.

when i arrived in boston, it was pretty late, so i booked it to the cab line and got outta dodge.

however, when i was leaving boston, i had some more time to explore. we got to Logan at about 5am... first thing i notice, the easy check-in kiosks (for united) are all broken. well, that's not true....out of a clump of 5 of them, 2 work. so there is a long line of people to use them. and what i absolutely will never understand is people who take like 20 minutes to check in with a kiosk. i mean....once you scan your credit card, you dont really have anything else to do (except maybe pick a seat). how on earth are people so slow at these???

once we were int he terminal, i got to explore. theres about 3 places to eat (this is the united terminal, which is clearly the stepchild of logan). first weird thing is that this rinky dinky little cafe had one of the most impressive airport salad bars i've ever seen. i even took a photo it was so impressive. lucky you.

pretty hot, huh!?

second thing....you know how some airports (primarily in the south....think charleston, charlotte, atlanta) try to up the charm-factor by having rocking chairs in the waiting areas? well, boston is certainly not trying to charm anyone....all the seats were your standard waiting area seats, except for one random stray rocking chair. how on earth do you think it got there? did someone fly it in and leave it? did it come through security? i thought this was totally bizarre...so again...i took a picture. (note - these were taken with my phone, so the quality is probably not so good - you can deal)

other weird thing about the boston airport was that there was a dunkin donuts right next to my gate, and the lady working the counter....had a voice volume of 8 million. as did most of the customers. so i got to hear a LOT of people bitching and moaning about how you can't get good coffee anywhere these days (except dunkin donuts, naturally). one guy had the nerve to scream "I was in San Antonio last week and wouldnt you know it....no dunkins there....those people must DIE". i was too tired to assault him, but i think karma is probably not on his side.

anyway - boston was wonderful. had a blast and would love to go back. i've heard great things about the other terminals there, but didn't have the chance to see them...so now i have an excuse to go back!