A southwestern Christmas – Vacation in Arizona

Sunday, 22-Dec-13 through Saturday, 28-Dec-13

Sunday, 22-Dec

• After a bit of adventure earlier in the day, Terese drops me off at Logan right around quarter after three – easily enough time to get to the gate… as long as security is nice to me…
• I get to the TSA checkpoint at 3:20, and it takes me a full 20min to get through. Seriously. I am through security by 3:40. It was easier to get through TSA’s scanner than it was to get through the ticket line to get my dang boarding pass.
• Funny story of the security line… I’m behind a black kid, who’s dressed pretty nice, but has the stereotypically horrid sagging pants. One of the TSA agents gives him some shit about it, telling him that having a belt would make everything a lot easier. His response? “Dude! I do have one – You guys took my belt!” The agent, of course, looked extremely sheepish. To his credit he did apologize, but not before giving the kid a complete pat down and scan.
• After getting to my gate and seeing that I had roughly a century before boarding, I pull out the phone and chat with Mom & Dad. Then? I relax and write. This gate… I’ve been here too many times. Leaving for Venezuela, coming back from Sao Paulo, seriously. It’s almost a second home; it easily has enough stories.
• The flight to Dallas… Boooooooring. Seriously. Nothing to say about it, I just sit in my seat and awkwardly wish that the people next to me were even remotely interesting… or at least interested in chatting.
• We land in Dallas, but my flight out is delayed… Excellent! That means I have time to hunt for something to EAT…. But there’s nothing. Nothing. With a capital N. Seriously, it’s 10:00 and nothing is open… at all. Seriously?
• Bar! Bar is open, and it’s named something BBQ-ish! And… they have salads. Literally only salads. Wtf.
• Qdoba is the only place open. Damn it all to a freezing doom. Fine, ok. Whatever. I order up a Burrito and run back to my gate, where I snack on chips until we board.
• Get on the plane after watching some poor guy fighting with the airline. I eat the burrito, while making happy-noises that kinda creep out my neighbor. Whatever. He just wishes that he had a burrito like mine.
• The guy who was fighting with the airline gets on the plane and sits behind me. Cool! That means that I hear the story:
  • Him and a few others (all sitting nearby) were flying in from Toronto, but their flight out was delayed… so American sold his tickets. Seriously, they sold them off in like three hours. All of them.
  • But… our flight was delayed too. So now they can make the flight, but their seats are already sold. “We’ll put you on a flight tomorrow”… wtf, no. They’re going to a conference or something, so that’s not really an option. So fighting and battling and running between terminals commences, just to get them tickets… finally the airline figures out that there’s a lot of people who didn’t show up and/or canceled, so they Toronto folks get put on, and we can move along.
• Looks like, even with Toronto, this will be another boring fli…. <sleeps>
• Can barely wake up, but get moving and meet Dad at the airport. Wow Arizona is warm!
• Chat as we drive back home, chill, see the upgraded house, and crash asleep