Epic Journey, Pt. 1

Destination:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

That's Denver.  Heck yes!  Okay, so I was really on the way to Colorado Springs, but I didn't have any nice pictures that would let you know I was in a city!  Plus, Colorado Springs isn't exactly recognizable by picture alone.

Alright.  Well, I meant to document my epic journey through 6 airports, 4 states, and lots of snow in a series of blogs WHILE traveling ... but my interwebz effed up.  So no.  Now I had the idea of just doing it anyways.  Even though it was ummmm ... 2 weeks ago now.  Oh well.  Deal.

My giant journey began on November 25th.  The day before Thanksgiving.  I know.  What was I thinking travelling the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving?  I had the first flight out of my airport so I thought I'd be okay.  My flight left at 6:26am (super random, but that's what my ticket said!).  I have always been in the practice of arriving at airports about 2 hours early for bathroom breaks, security checks, stupid random checks, gates changes, and delays--in no particular order.  Since I was leaving from College Station-Easterwood though, I felt that I only needed to be there about an hour early.  It is only one terminal with two gates after all.

Front check-in of CLL:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

"Secure" area of CLL in front of Gate 2 (oooOOOooo ... sarcasm):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

I was rewarded with a 30-minute wait outside of the terminal as it didn't open until 6am.  Lame.  I had to stinking wait in the cold for what seemed like ever.  Thankfully, I am quite the benevolent person, and I held my composure.  So.  The airport finally opened and I got my tickets (heck yes for electronic check-in via iPhone!).  My security check was quite thorough and consisted of the 70-something year old guard asking if I had any bombs.  Of course my answer was a resounding, "Yes!"  Okay.  So I said "no."  Same difference.  I was taken aback considering that I am always the one out of my group to be "randomly" checked.  I suppose I look like a terrorist with my dark skin/hair/eyes?  The part that freaked me out most about this portion of my journey and the airport in general was the lack of jetways!!!  I had to walk outside the terminal, onto the tarmac in cold rain, and then climb stairs to get into a plane.  Still not the worst part.  I'm a pretty tall guy, and America doesn't care about the increasingly tall average Joe (haha, I'm JOvan!!! ^_^) since I had to pretty much double myself over to fit into the plane.  Similar to how this kid looks in the safety pamphlet (probably the best part of the entire trip) on the seat backs:

To my horror, while walking out onto the tarmac, I was greeted by a plane with propellers!!!  I didn't even know that they were still used for commercial serivce!!!  I was so scary being on that sucker.  I wish it wouldn't have been so dark so I could've taken a pic.  Moving on--I've flown a lot in my life, and that was the scariest flight I've ever been on.  The propellers were loud and buzzy-sounding and the whole plane was vibrating and felt like it was going to be ripped apart by the sheer centrifugal force of those propellers.  And to top it off, the flight was to Bush Intercontinental (only one of the most horribly laid out airports of all time) which was a paltry 30 minutes away.  I felt a little badly for using such a disproportionately high amount of resources to travel this year.  Oh well.  Worth it times a million.  At least.

Speaking of Bush Intercontinental, I had to disembark onto the tarmac yet again (still raining) and get onto a cramped little bus.  I have never done this ... and I've been to some small airports ... this is one of the busiest in the country though!!!  The bus didn't even take us to all the terminals.  If you weren't terminal A, then too bad.  You had to get off that bus and walk or ride a bus to the other terminals.  Of course I was in E which is the furthest away from A.  Thank God I wasn't having to make a quick connection.  The terminal I was in was kind of neat ... in a quirky 60s chic kind of way.

Terminal E (imagine a white cylindrical room complete with faux ceiling gilding):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

This is what I got to stare at for a good solid 3 hours:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

The bathrooms in Terminal E are aptly named, "Mens & Womens Bathroom."  Hahahaha.  I did find a lovely little oddity that I've yet to encounter anywhere else.  The hand driers in the restroom.  They were these weird gray, curvy, newfangled boondoggles with big opening for you to stick your hands into.  It was weird.  I had to watch someone else use them first ... how embarrassing.  No joke though, those suckers don't lie!  They really dry the hands completely in about 4 seconds.  I can't remember the last time I didn't have to wipe my hands dry on my clothes after using a hand drier.  Other than that I didn't encounter anything worthwhile in Houston.  Imagine that.

Hand drier instructions with hand drier following:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

From Houston, I proceeded to board my plane to Colorado Springs.  Wooooot.  CSprings is where my best friend and several other friends live (thanks to the US Army stationing them at Ft. Carson).  That flight was slightly better than the one from the other CS, but not by much because of the passenger in seat 18C.  I was in 18B.  I wished I could kill 18C the whole time I was in the damn plane.  Ugh.  That disgruntled letter will be the topic of another post.  It's funny for everyone else but me.  Moral of the story: the flights from CS to CS were hell.  It was highly worth it though ... I got to be with my best friend in her wicked awesome 3 storey house along with crazy army friends for almost 2 weeks (heck yes, no finals!!!).  I also found an amusing wonder of science in the Sky Mall magazine (see toothbrush below).

A toothbrush that cuts brushing time in half (you know, because that minute is just brutal as it is).  It looks like it would hurt and you'd have to have a perfect bite and teeth:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

This is what I finally arrived to (Right outside Colorado Springs Airport):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

So worth it.