So on the way to Boston, on Christmas Eve, the airport was pretty much deserted. Everyone had already gotten where they were going and late travelers like myself were rewarded with a whole aisle on the plane to themselves. The parking garage was full, and so was the overflow parking lot. But the good folks at McCarran airport found an extra dirt lot around the bend and let folks park there for free. A little shuttle van took us to the airport.
Spent the nights with my Dad and Sharon in New Salem — a non-existent little town in in central Massachusetts where they just bought a home. The town has only 400 or so people, and is actually the remnants of four other towns that were possessed and flooded back in the 30′s by the government to make Quabbin reservoir, which provides water to much of the state. When Quabbin gets low during a drought, you can still see the tip of the church steeple from the drowned town. My Dad loves stuff like that. He’s in his element out there.
Speaking of elements, the ground was covered in a sheath of ice like I haven’t seen in a long time. I was a-slippin’ and a-sliding all over the place as I tried to make my way from the car to the house and visa-versa. This didn’t stop us from visiting the rest of the family at Valley Farm. Good eats, good peeps, and a decent Yankee swap, to boot.
The flight home on December 26 was full. No more stretching across the seats and sleeping. I had received LOST Season One on DVD, and watched four episodes on the way home. I almost feel like there should be some kind of law against this, as the first four episodes feature about 20 flashbacks to the plane crash that sets the plot in motion. Every ten minutes my 17″ display would light up with screaming faces and oxygen masks dropping down, flying objects cracking heads, people getting sucked out the back of the plane at 30,000 feet where the tail had been torn off, and all manner of other airplane disaster mayhem. I think someone behind me may have had a heart attack, but I was too engrossed to really pay attention to that.
Anyways, I realized how pitiful my life is last night: it’s the little things. When I got to the shuttle pick-up point at around 11:30 PM to take me back to my car at the overflow-overflow lot, there were well over a hundred people there waiting. Now, the little shuttle van can hold maybe 15 or so. And the van comes around about every 10 minutes. I didn’t bother pulling out my calculator to figure out that it would be precisely one long ass time before I got back to my car, which was really only half a mile away. I fidgeted in the line for a moment, then I walked upstairs and checked the taxi line, which was endless.
After fretting for another few minutes about waiting in line like a sheep, I decided to strike off on my own. I was going to be an urban trailblazer — a rebel against the oppression of sidewalk arrows and yellow guide ropes. I slung my backpack and walked right through that line of long-faced people, across the street, and into the wilderness. The wilderness consisted mainly of gravel ditches and jersey barriers, and a few busy roads without crosswalks. But my bravery and ingenuity were rewarded when ten grueling minutes later I arrived at my car, panting, sweating, but very much alive. Those suckers waiting in line at the airport probably hadn’t even moved. I almost hiked back to let them know.
And then I realized that was the most adventurous thing I’ve done in a month. And probably will be for the next month too. Ouch.
Merry Christmas, all!
