returning home

I returned to the east coast from our Colorado vacation yesterday.  As is par for the course for my 2009 flights (see Food Poisoning, and also lets recall that I almost didn't make it back from Nashville for my dad's triple bypass due to US Air's affinity for cancellations) I hit a delay coming home.

Now, I admit, an extra two hours on a layover (on the occasion I have an unfortunate layover - I avoid them like a plague) isn't too big of a deal. Sure, I didn't have my laptop and was pretty bored reading a bad novel in the terminal. But its not tragic. Just ugh.

My layover was in Kansas City. I've never flown through here before, and didn't know that the gates don't all connect within one terminal. Imagine my surprise to emerge from the bathroom and realize I needed to go through security again. Also imagine my surprise when I walked a few more feet - on the same level as the gates - and found baggage claim. There are several interspersed through the gates at this supposedly international airport.  At this point, I only have my coat, purse and our Wii (which Princess Charming had brought to St. Louis to share with the cousins for Christmas), since my rolling carry-on didn't fit in the tiny overhead bin of the Denver-KC plane and the flight attendant had been nice enough to check through for me free of charge. So I set out to get some dinner, seeing as I now had three hours to kill instead of 45 minutes.

As it turns out, KCI does not have actual food, at least not in terminal C. I could get coffee, magazines, $5.99 bags of trail mix, really bad bagels, and a beer, but there were no burgers to be found. This is incredibly disappointing when you want to bury the sadness of flying home from vacation, alone, when you know you won't see your spouse for more than 3 days in a row again for at least 5 months, AND you're landing too late to get home-home and will need to spend the night at your parents house in the guest room. All I wanted was a freaking burger. I ended up with a bad midwestern frozen bagel and a bag of chips.

To give you an idea of the condition of this airport - which is also peppered with posters about KC's past sporting phrases like "Although Kansas City is not as well known as St. Louis, it was also integral to the ...." - here is my favorite sign:

I surmise this mid-sized airport is falling victim to the reduced flights and airport consolidations.  Gates 61-64 (based on the color scheme) used to be Northwest.

Then I had to go through security again. Since this is somewhat of a fiasco and I wasn't sure if there was a restroom within security between gates 61 and 69, and given that I a massive snow coat, a sweatshirt, snow-boots to remove and x-ray, as well as liquids and the Wii (which is apparently a laptop to the T.SA), I decided to use the bathroom again before embarking on this mission.  Now, imagine my surprise when I see my supposedly checked through carry-on running around the baggage carousel all alone. Good thing I drink a lot and am not a camel.

So eventually we board and depart.  Nothing eventful, a couple little jostles but nothing odd for a 60 seat plane. The flight attendant came around with beverages and surprised us me with snacks! Peanuts!

Or not.
Bummer.

I ate them anyway.