Abort

I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be crammed into a minimally comfortable seat on a Northwest Airlines DC9 on my way to Detroit, and then St. Louis. But the bad weather that blew through the midwest yesterday -- yesterday -- is still affecting air travel today. The first three flights of the day were flat out cancelled for Northwest, and from what I gather, for the other carriers as well. There was another flight to Detroit at noon, but it's full. In fact, they're all full, for the remainder of the day. So, I get to go out tomorrow.

In a way, its a good thing. I had forgotten to leave time for the jiggery pokery at check in, and of course to submit myself to the tender mercies of the Transportation Safety Administration. I got to the airport at a quarter to six, and was in line by ten to six, for a six-forty flight. I might have made it if things were running smoothly -- but that, they most certainly were not. There were many vocally unhappy people, including some who were apparently trying to go to Bogota by way of Australia and the moon, with all of their bags, relatives, carryons, and parakeets. One fellow loudly proclaimed that this was of course the fault of the airline CEOs, cutting staff and services so that they could earn their obscene bonuses. Actually, I'm not at all sure he was wrong about that, but I didn't chime in. I was too busy looking at my watch.

I did get to see Harrisburg International Airport's new parking terminal. The good news is, its pretty big. Huge, in fact. The bad news is, its designed for owls, eagles, and others who need little in the way of directions or illumination. There's almost no interior lighting, period --- more mood lighting than anything --- and the signs are few and far between. Signage at HIA needs serious work. (Here's a hint, guys: grey and black signs in the gloom aren't particularly readable. Stylish as all hell, oh, yes, but readable? No.) I parked next to a set of doors that seemed to head toward the terminal, walked through, and to my left and right were slideways. Neither was marked as to where it went. I took a guess, and guessed right. Turned out that the actual doors into the terminal were another fifth of a mile down, but still, not bad. Coming out, though: good god. No exit directing signs at the ends of the aisles -- pull out and peer left and right, trying to guess. At the end of the main aisle, a gihugic DO NOT ENTER and a tiny exit sign pointing to the right. Go down that aisle and there's another exit sign pointing to the down-spiral to get out, only on the ground in front of it there's an arrow coming off the spiral. Do I get on, go around, what? And, to cap it off, when you get down to the very end, and pay to get out, you get to drive down this narrow aisle that leads out -- and there actually is a sign pointing to the exit. Course, its right AT the exit, so it doesn't do a whole lot of good...and at that time in the morning, the sun is glaring in your eyes, so you can't actually read it all that well -- but hey, they tried. Once.

So tomorrow, I get to do it again. This time, at least, I'm forewarned. Oh, and I know not to eat before the flight. There's no public bathrooms near the ticketing area at HIA. Cute.