My alarm went off before 5:30 and Brother and I were out the door around 6:45. My flight wasn’t until 10:10 but I was to be at the airport two hours ahead and the train took an hour.
As I checked in and dropped the bag I was told there were long lines for international security, so don’t dawdle, go there directly. I did detour briefly to the bathroom, then got in line. Brother stayed outside the line until I got through. I saw why the line was slow – there were six stations for passport control and only two of them were active.
Once through that and the security check it was another long hike to the gate. They wanted me there by 9:15. I made it before 9:30. And then waited. For international flights the plane doesn’t pull up to the terminal. One takes a bus to the boarding station. The buses hadn’t started loading when I got there.
We backed away from the boarding station only a few minute late. And we arrived in Detroit 35 minutes early.
For much of the flight over land the weather was clear. I could see when we flew over Nürnberg…
… across the Netherlands, central England and Ireland, across the wilds of Labrador, down the St. Lawrence River, and over Ottawa …
I had hoped to get a good shot of downtown Detroit as we landed. Alas, we were too far away.
I had arranged for two friends to pick me up. They took me to the airport more than three weeks ago and I guided them to the correct terminal of the two. Today, once through customs and baggage claim I went to the curbside to wait. And wait. A couple times I checked the road outside domestic arrivals in case they missed the road to international arrivals. I also found Detroit Metro Airport no longer has pay phones. After almost an hour I gave up and took a taxi home.
Once inside and with my home phone I called my friends. They had gone to the wrong terminal.
Yeah, one solution is to get a simple phone for moments like this. Another is to get friends with a better sense of direction, though those can sometimes be hard to come by.
I took 700 photos during this trip. Between camera (with good zoom) and phone, Brother took 1650 photos. He copied his batch to my camera card. I haven’t looked through them yet.
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