{"id":25590,"date":"2018-06-16T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=25590"},"modified":"2018-06-16T10:00:34","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T14:00:34","slug":"june-15-june-16-2018-airports-why-did-it-have-to-be-airports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=25590","title":{"rendered":"June 15-June 16, 2018 – Airports… Why Did It Have To Be Airports?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Would you rather…? \u00a0It\u2019s a game where two choices are presented and you have to choose. \u00a0Sometimes it\u2019s a choice between the lesser of two evils; sometimes it\u2019s a choice between two E Ticket options. \u00a0It\u2019s never supposed to be obvious – if it is, then the question is either flawed or about coconut and coconut is terrible and could kill me (not really but I really, really hate it) so I\u2019d almost always pick the non-coconut option.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
That\u2019s all contextual background to explain my mom\u2019s toughest \u201cwould you rather…?\u201d \u00a0Would my mom rather have Dr McCoy\u2019s hypospray from Star Trek that could cure pretty much everything with a \u201cpfffft\u201d or would she rather have the Enterprise\u2019s transporter so she could just \u201cbeam\u201d to some exotic location. \u00a0Whenever somebody she loves is sick, it\u2019s the hypospray no question because Mom is awesome and always would prefer her own suffering to having somebody else endure pain. \u00a0But get her on one of those crazy transcontinental seemingly never ending flights and she will exclaim, \u201cdammit, Kevin! \u00a0I\u2019m a person not a fedex package!\u201d \u00a0Actually she wouldn\u2019t say that; I was trying for a Dr McCoy witticism but those are really hard to write. \u00a0 Anyhoo, Mom would actually say as we were crammed into our economy cabin seats, \u201cWhen in the heck are we getting a transporter?!\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As I sit cramping up on this 13.5 hour trip from DC to Addis Ababa, awaiting a 3 hour layover before another couple hours to Kilimanjaro, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cDammit, Kevin! \u00a0I\u2019m a person not a pretzel. \u00a0Where in the hell\u2019s my transporter?!\u201d \u00a0Like I said, not easy to write those McCoy-isms.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The morning started at Dulles wherein I thought, hey, I\u2019ll skip the escalator since I\u2019ll be sitting such a long time…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Halfway up these stairs I thought, \u201cwhy the hell am I waking up these stairs?!\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Apparently I\u2019m a salty traveler, often invoking the Judeo Christian notion of a land of damnation. \u00a0Huh.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But I digress. \u00a0The check in line at Dulles was ungodly (there I go again)…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
…and the concession thieves were charging different rates at different ends of the temple… er, terminal.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I posted this comment to Facebook:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In my version of YOJIMBO, I would pit the Hudson News at gate A31 against the Stellar Partners at B81. \u201cYa know, Stellar sells their sodas for 6 cents less than you… maybe you ought to sell it for $2.28…\u201d. Then I\u2019d go to Stellar and get them to cut to $2.27… and so on … and so on… until I was the last man standing with a reasonably priced bottle of Diet Coke.<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And shoutout to Rick Ward for the brilliantly funny reply, \u201cI prefer the sequel: The Coke, The Tab and the Pepsi.\u201d \u00a0Well played, Rick. \u00a0Gold star. \u00a0Big blue thumbs up.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And now here I am tapping on my iPhone notes app trying to capture insights or memories. \u00a0But here\u2019s the thing… it\u2019s just me flying. \u00a0Another day, another airport, another crappy inflight meal, another teeny bottle of alcohol. \u00a0I suppose though that\u2019s true of my marathon posts – another weekend, another race, another 26.2 miles, another bottled water. \u00a0But hopefully the devil\u2019s in the details and there\u2019s some fun to be had in the moment, even if you feel like you\u2019re stuck in a moment that you can\u2019t get out of for many, many hours yet.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I binged and caught up on \u201cArrested Development\u201d and thus burned out a bit on having earphones shoved into my ears. \u00a0I\u2019m having trouble reading, my eyelids fluttering, and my body is questioning the hour since time is a construct that has lost all meaning up here at 38,000 feet. \u00a0Yet I can\u2019t sleep. \u00a0I am, as I said, pretzeled into this seat.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I did get to meet in person the trip organizer and Mt Kilimanjaro Race Director Ms. Marie Frances before we boarded. \u00a0She seems a lovely hearted woman and a fascinating, true character. \u00a0I look forward to posting more thoughts and stories as the week progresses.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I also met a few other climbers\/runners. \u00a0Some brought suitcases full of climbing gear and donations. \u00a0I\u2019m feeling sheepishly ill-prepared both for me personally and for contributing to the local community we are visiting. \u00a0But the good news is it so far looks like I\u2019m with a group of good hearted souls. \u00a0There\u2019s comfort in my being the jerk of the group. \u00a0Makes it easier on me.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My $2.49 mini parka by the way has a broken zipper… which they conveniently left in my pocket. \u00a0What am I? \u00a0A magician? \u00a0Or a tailor? \u00a0That\u2019s the same thing sometimes… but I am sadly neither at any time. \u00a0Ya know what? That\u2019s not true. \u00a0I have been known to magically get a nose or two.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
***<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pardon my mix of sci fi, but where the frak is my frakin\u2019 transporter?! \u00a0For frak\u2019s sake! \u00a0How much frakin\u2019 longer is this mother-frakin\u2019 flight?!<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
Sorry about that. \u00a0Tension breaker. \u00a0Had to be done.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Answer: Six hours, forty two minutes.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Spuck. (*)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* Years ago I wrote a tech noir novel called Space Spy<\/i><\/b>. \u00a0In it, my invented curse word was \u201cspuck.\u201d \u00a0I did a lot of \u201cAstral-this\u201d and \u201cSpace-that\u201d to make it sound sci-fi-y. \u00a0I suspect you may not give a flying fig about this but in 1980s tv classic \u201cMoonlighting\u201d terms, I also suspect you know exactly now what \u201cspuck\u201d … and \u201cflying fig\u201d… means.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
***<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
You hear a lot as people congregate in the galleys (FAA rules be damned) trying to stretch legs, rehydrate with a plastic cup shot glass of H2O, and pass the time as the minutes pass slowly but the miles go flying by.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A special needs school psychologist is headed to a five week African adventure; her mother was supposed to be flying with her but had emergency gall bladder surgery; she\u2019s recuperating and is only missing the first week, and is now cleared to join in Mozambique.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A retired military mom is taking her soon-to-be 16-year-old son (as of this coming Tuesday)\u00a0on a service trip to Madagascar because he\u2019s always been interested in lemurs. \u00a0Her recently college graduated daughter went with her to Nepal last year.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A John Hopkins Public Health grad student is headed to Zambia to intern at a clinic specializing in assisting AIDS patients managing their own care in small communities.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A mother is meeting up with her daughter in Cape Town, her child excited to show her around the place she\u2019s been studying abroad this past semester.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A 13-person missionary group headed to Ethiopia was struggling through a forced overnight and a rebooking for today; it took ten 30-minute delays yesterday before the airline opted to cancel their flight and put them up at a hotel.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
***<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Arriving in Addis Ababa, I realized the rumor that had circulated through the plane was false. \u00a0Some know-it-all passenger said they didn\u2019t have any chairs at this airport. \u00a0There were chairs. \u00a0And long queues mainly because we all thought we should be at our respective gates early. \u00a0The attendants kept insisting we should wait to go through the security scanners half an hour before our flight, but it had taken us 45 minutes to get to that point. \u00a0Yet I noticed as we boarded our plane that the security line was indeed nonexistent and you could just walk right through. \u00a0I guess we all should\u2019ve listened. \u00a0But it wasn\u2019t just me as an ugly American know-it-all – for the record I always thought they\u2019d have chairs at the airport, albeit I also assumed like all airports in the world they wouldn\u2019t have enough chairs for all the passengers \u2014 no, no. \u00a0Passengers with every sort of passport poo-poo\u2019d the 30 minute warning and that\u2019s why the queue got jammed. \u00a0A pox on all of us. \u00a0All are punished.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I did meet the rest of Marie Francis\u2019s group. \u00a0I\u2019m bad with names so already have forgotten most of them but all told there\u2019s supposedly 13 of us traveling with a few more joining later. \u00a0I\u2019m the only solo traveler and thus get a single room tonight … though I will be sharing the huts as we ascend Mt Kilimanjaro.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Here\u2019s a group shot of us in the Addis Ababa Airport:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We experienced an hour or so delay sitting on our flight due to an a\/c technical issue. \u00a0It got really hot sitting there but not once we were airborne i guess they must have really, really fixed it; it was as if we were in a flying ice chest.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This does not bode will for my nights on the mountain. \u00a0Indeed, chatting with folks about their preparations and supplies, I think maybe my laissez-faire attitude could be a disastrous anti-strategy. \u00a0Time will tell.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What I will never know is just what this thing was on my inflight meal tray.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I took a bite (gotta try everything, right?) but it was… as good as it appears in this photo. \u00a0I could not place the texture, the tastes, nor the raison d\u2019\u00eatre.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
So it goes on the road to Zanzibar…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Would you rather…? \u00a0It\u2019s a game where two choices are presented and you have to choose. \u00a0Sometimes it\u2019s a choice between the lesser of two evils; sometimes it\u2019s a choice between two E Ticket options. \u00a0It\u2019s never supposed to be obvious – if it is, then the question is either flawed or about coconut and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}