Wanna know what would be cool? Arizona. I hear there’s one group there that’s worth meeting because they’re really diligent about reviewing proposals and getting back to people in a prompt manner. No bulk-flushing of email without reading stuff or anything like that.

Anyway, I’m not going to Arizona. I’m also not going to Australia either, at least not in the immediate term, as the Sunshine State I’m referring to is Florida and not Queensland. Probably just as well, as the major centres of Queensland are about 2000+ kilometres away from Greenock (as in Greenock Creek Winery and the Roennfeldt Road micro-bottlings).

I’m sort-of looking forward to this because my last eight trips to the state (2006 x 3, 2007 x 2, 2008 x 3) coincided with the arrival of a hurricane, and since we’re months away from the Atlantic storm season, it should be all good. I also understand that the winter freeze the state was suffering from has ended.

This year’s kick-off looks pretty good: I’m flying a combination of Air Canada code-share and Star Alliance partners so while it’s going to be cramped and uncomfortable on the sequence of Canadair RJs I’m pretty sure that my Aeroplan status will ensure that I eventually make it there and home again. The road trip won’t be as adventuresome as say, my pal Amy’s cross-country trek in a Budget rental truck, since she’s got mayhem, microflora and fried bologna to go with hers (note: don’t mess with chefs driving a truck – they’ll go old-school medieval on your poultry), but this one’s different for me because I’m to be a ghost.

YUL-IAD

The first leg already sucks because it’s a code-share to Washington-Dulles (the airport that takes the “dull” in its name seriously) and it’s United who’s handling the flight (boo…). They are just the worst Star Alliance partner but check-in was fairly straightforward today, though I suspect that it was a combination of my checking in online and there being no one else at their counter.

The checked baggage system at PET-Dorval failed but as I switched to Briggs & Riley’s Asian-airlines compliant luggage years ago, I could skip the line of 2000+ and head directly to security and INS. The new body scanners are now in place but one can refuse (for now) and go for a full body patdown; since I have a narcissist streak and don’t like anyone touching me to begin with, I elected for the scan. INS was a snap but at some point I’ll have to sign up for NEXUS and just hope that the retinal scanners don’t oh, burn out my retinas. I wonder if Steve and the Conservative entourage go for the scanners?

Nasty surprise – Maple Leaf Lounge Internet access is no longer free. CAD$9.95 for a 24 hour period, and it’s only valid 24 hours and within the Lounges themselves as there’s no partnering with other SA lounges. I guess there’s Boingo, but no 24-hour access plans across airports because it’s Bell that’s controlling the service in YUL (airport roaming requires *monthly* plan – one of Bell’s great ideas to help pay for that HSPA network they just installed). Of course, I wouldn’t have this problem if I had a 3G modem but I’m too far down on the food chain to warrant one. I’ll guess I’ll just content myself by drinking the lounge’s free tonic water while cursing Colin Rovanesceau.

While I’m playing with my glass of tonic water, I’m sitting beside a guy who’s on the phone with his real estate agent. He seems to be trying to get an inspection set up for a house he’s interested in buying in Outremont but rather than questions on say, presence of urea insulation, dry rot and potential water damage, he’s concerned about soundproofing. Goes on and on and on about soundproofing. Wants the inspector to look inside the wall (hello? you haven’t bought the house yet) to make sure that there’s soundproofing installed. And to also make sure that they used special soundproof pipes (not soundproofing material around the pipes, special soundproof pipes), because he doesn’t want to hear his “little woman” make cooking noises or listen to dishwasher noises. (FYI) Miele makes a dishwasher that puts out less than 45 dBa but I guess he’s from the Fred Flintstone generation since the little woman apparently gets up early to make him breakfast or something.

Troglodyte aspects aside, I’ve never quite seen someone that relaxed when it came to purchasing a house because the inspection’s going through and he hasn’t lined up his financing yet with the bank (“when he gets back from his trip”). Also been a while since I’ve seen someone so quick to miss the point. I’ll save the iMac joke for another post, but the whooshing sound was deafening as structural condition, roof, and infrastructure weren’t important. Just soundproofing.

This of course would have been better tolerated if Internet access was still free.

United (boo…) has gate slot 85 in the US terminal, meaning that it’s the furthest point in the terminal from the lounge, and that I’ll be getting some exercise in as I trudge over there. The flight itself is United’s (boo…) version of the Embraer 170 and for some reason the new travel system does not understand the concept of using Aeroplan status to oh, pick a seat that’s not right in front of the lavatory. I did manage to change, though United (boo…) goes out of its way to see if you want to *pay* them extra for extra legroom. Well, no, I just want a seat near the front of the plane and I want that free.

Take-off was on-time and they’re now using a larger cup for the complimentary refreshment (Seagram’s ginger ale) but the cabin crew didn’t let anyone move up into the Economy Plus seats even though they were all empty because no one paid for them. Does it improve my impression of United? Boo… hiss… (roll eyes now)

IAD – the “dull” in Dulles grows to new heights

Just how dull can Dulles get? Watch what happens when not one but *two* aircraft come down with the same mechanical failure.

The area surrounding Washington DC appears to be completely rid of snow but it looks like my clam quinoa risotto because everything’s the same shade of brown. Brown fields, brown trees, brown building tops. I think the area will be nicer when things start to bloom.

The United (boo…) flight landed on time and I hoofed it over to the Z Terminal (that’s a new one) since the United (boo…) Red Carpet lounges were too far from the next connector. No USAir lounge at IAD as far as I know. I don’t know when it was built but this definitely wasn’t there the last time I flew in/out of Dulles; wow – that was back in 2008 when I was on my way back from Vienna (ah, Austrian Airlines Business Class, how I miss you and your red jumper suit cabin crew).

It’s new. It’s shiny. It’s also desolate; not in a Children of the Corn kind of way but rather a “you’re in the part of the airport where everyone forgot that you exist” sense. What’s that movie? The Terminal? Z has that sensation of being cut off.

I found gate Z7 and since there was plenty of time, I beat a retreat out of Z and took their new commuter train (with that new car smell) over to B to find some food.

B is the Delta part of the terminal so I can see what Ronny would be faced with should she ever find herself in IAD. The B is for bargain!

City Wok seemed like a good idea, but then again, they were the only option that didn’t have an all-fried menu so I put in an order and did my Forrest Gump and patiently waited to see what I would get.

Friendly enough bunch in a food court sort of way with Hispanic FOH and Asians manning the wok and prep stations; one guy was using a cleaver to take his frustrations out on some char siu – lots of noise but very uniform squares of pork in spite of the rage.

Kung Pao shrimp. Okay, I actually had to ask what this was since it doesn’t exist in the Chinese culinary repertoire. Stir-fried dish served with white rice; it had red and green peppers, onions, water chestnuts, peanuts (amazing – they served peanuts in a litigious zone), 9 shrimp, ginger and a whack-load of raw garlic in a salty dark soy-based sauce. Not bad and they certainly didn’t skimp on the shrimp but I couldn’t finish everything because that garlic was an impressive “thwack!” to the palate.

Hot and sour soup. This was very good: black cloud ear, tofu, egg, lily bud bamboo and read chiles in a (slightly over-salty) broth. If I had to do this all over, I’d do a bigger soup and some little side instead of what I ordered.

So, back to Z in a train that smelled of Windex.

Back to recharging the hardware while waiting for the flight so that I have some power to continue “working” (no, seriously, I did have work to do). Then the announcement that the aircraft normally used to service the Charlotte run had a mechanical issue but that they’re flying in a replacement place from Reagan, so we’d be only 35 minutes late. Okay, it’s not United (boo…) but somehow that doesn’t work because the announcement’s being made at 1:55p and the revised departure is 2:10p. Then my P990i goes off and it’s USAir’s automat system telling me that I’m going to miss my Gainesville connector and to go see an agent. The nice lady behind the counter says that there’s nothing to worry about because the aircraft just left Reagan and is in range. In range? they’re what, 20 miles apart? The plan has to start landing procedures right after takeoff. Anyway the flight crew is pumped and ready to go and the plane touches down at 2:30p with a turnaround time of 20 minutes, which gives me exactly 18 minutes to get to the GNV flight once I arrive in Charlotte. I can do this – I’ve exchanged my crappy seat for one at the front of the plane.

Co-pilot comes back from pre-flight inspection and tells the captain that he needs to talk to him and my P990i gets another call from the automat. Uh-oh. I know what that means so I stake out the real estate in front of the podium for the cancellation call, which comes in while I’m pulling out my boarding passes.

Good thing! Turns out I don’t have to fly to Jacksonville and do the 90 minute drive to get to Gainesville. I can take the next flight to Charlotte and then take the last flight out to Gainesville directly. Okay then, that’s a plan. Too bad that the last flight is three hours later than my original arrival time, but it looks like I’ll get a crack at Charlotte’s Internet access after all.

The gate agent at Z9 is somewhat bewildered that everyone’s rushing the podium to board the flight but I guess she didn’t know about the sequential aircraft breakdowns and how people did so not want to stay in IAD. I get onboard and settle in, with Charlie the Mesa Air pilot deadheading to Charlotte sitting next to me. Am I missing something here? Spring must be coming because he’s hitting on the woman across the aisle, the man sitting behind me is trying to pick up the woman sitting behind me (in the literal biblical sense – he’s actually quoting scripture) and the two women in front are talking about how they can’t find people in clubs (no less). Just take off already.

Gah! What died?

The flight smells of a$$! Talk about one interminably long hour of flight time… we’re at cruising altitude and this USAir flight smells like a porta-potty. Breathe through your mouth, breathe through your mouth, don’t hyperventilate now.

IAD-CLT

We land. I’m in Charlotte. An hour of hyperventilating later, and I’m in Charlotte

I like Charlotte. The airport’s nice, the people are nice, and the Internet access is free across the entire airport.

That’s right – Charlotte-Douglas still has free Internet access; it’s slow access but it’s complimentary and free is always much, much better than not free. I somehow have 178 MB of email to transfer so someone must have been really attachment-happy. Haven’t had that since the J&T team decided that I needed to see the same email and associated attachments in quintuplicate (“best of the best” my a$$).

I don’t mind. I’m happy to be sitting in the USAir lounge in Charlotte; the air is a whole lot fresher than that RJ900 and apart from downloading that massive whack of messages, I have entertainment (business travelers thinking that the lounge is an extension of Ashley Madison) and potato chips to while away the time, and their pod machine is working and is cranking out palatable expresso. I’m also spending the time recharging all the electronics so that I can keep at it on the final leg. Good layover.

There’s a long walk over to E from the lounge but I don’t mind – CLT is very well laid out and it’s very pleasant to walk through.

No CLT NASCAR Café for me this time; I’m going to risk finding dinner in Gainesville since the flight should land just at 9:00p and Avis Preferred status means the car should be waiting for me.

CLT-GNV

Crap. I’ll land at GNV all right, but the aircraft’s number 19 for departure. So much for landing at 9. At least the cabin has a reasonable smell and they’ve given me the whole can of seltzer water (score!).

Dinner at Dragonfly

Nope. 9:43p touchdown and close to 30 minutes to get my vehicle means that Dragonfly closed well in advance of my getting out of the airport. I forgot that they don’t have a separate Preferred counter so my ride wasn’t ready for me and I even had to wait in line. Haven’t had to do that in a long while either. The two people ahead of me took the last G6 and the last Malibu (irrelevant – I have a “no Malibu” in my dossier) so I got a choice between an Aveo, a Kia Sportage and a Nissan Rogue. Aveo? While I’m sure that they’re fine, fine vehicles in their own right, I don’t need to be driving in Florida in one – there’s this general question of being able to survive bumps with the masses of SUVs and trucks that permeate the landscape.

It’s quite dark outside and there’s almost no one on the streets. I did pack my GPS; I don’t know Gainesville that well and it is not really that easy to get around when it’s dark.

The GPS says that Dragonfly is on the way to the hotel just to mock me, but the hotel is 7.2 miles away from the airport. And what was the replacement to dinner at the isakaya? The Clown. Sad but true, as the Golden Arches were the only option open outside of the Chihuahua.

Hilton

My friend Betsy tuned me onto the Hilton Garden Inn properties. No-nonsense stuff, with the important stuff like free water bottles, a cookie (that I don’t really need) and reliable free Internet access.

This one’s a bit out of the way (it’s close to a shopping complex) but easier to drive to and from where I’m going. They remembered my HHonors number and my free(!) bottles of water at check-in, but I was given an “accessible” room (which they swear up and down is in my HH profile – uh, no), then a room next to the guest laundry (Maytag industrial units definitely aren’t Miele-like for decibel output), then finally to where I’ll be holed up in until this is all over. It’s a “connecting room” but so long as the person doesn’t stay up watching pr0n all night I’ll be okay. Most importantly, there’s in-room coffee, the internet access is still free and the microwave actually worked in reheating without any resultant McNugget explosions.

They’ve got Travel Channel and there’s Anthony Bourdain on the Monday night loop so at least there’s background noise while I finish off the work I need to do. Looking forward to the next day – there’s going to be galbi on my order.

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