I drove the rental car back to Phoenix; Dad provided some navigation help, letting me know what intersection we should see next. That was nice; it let me know that we knew where we are on the map. Unfortunately, things got confusing in downtown Phoenix. When we were there on Monday, the clerk at the rental agency marked on the map where they were, so that’s where I was headed. Unfortunately, the streets are numbered a little funny, in my opinion. The north/south streets, from the west side moving east, count down: 43rd Ave, 35th Ave, 19th Ave, etc. Then it’s Central Ave. Then they count up: 7th St, 24th St, 40th St, etc. (Yeah, down as Avenue numbers then up as Street numbers.)
When we got off I-10, we had a little trouble finding the proper intersections. We found our way to Washington, west of mark on the map, so we needed to keep going east, but Washington was one-way in wrong direction. So we got on Van Buren and headed east. When we passed a part of Arizona State University, Dad said, “Here’s the university. It's passed the mark.” So we could now get back on Washington and head west to find the rental agency, right? Wrong. Dad found a different thing marked as “University”.
OK. We’re running out of time. Our flight was leaving in about an hour and some. We still needed to return the car, catch a shuttle bus to the airport, check in baggage, and so on. So I called Thrifty for directions on my cell. We had to go all the way to 40th St, but we went a little east of Central so far. That’s when I figured out Dad spotted something on the map that we didn’t reach yet. Oh-well.
From these directions, we got to the rental agency just fine; checked-in the car; finished the paperwork. Still about an hour before the flight leaves; kinda tight. But we can do it. The shuttle bus dropped us off at the Northwest Airlines terminal. They had a baggage check right there, so we took advantage of that. Inside, we made our way to the Northwest counter to get our tickets. That’s where we learned the plane was already 2½ hours late. The clerk double booked us from Minneapolis to Lansing for our original flight and the next one later that evening. So everything was in place and we had lots of time to kill.
With all this time, we wandered around the gift shops in the airport, had lunch, sat around. I had a rice and beans lunch; that would haunt me later.
When we finally were able to board our flight, a flight at the next jet bridge, whose door was right next to ours, was boarding too; they were going to Memphis. It’s surprising how many people got confused and got in the wrong line.
In order to avoid getting “airsick” again, I didn’t watch the ground while taxing or look out the window much during the flight. That seemed to work, because I didn’t sick again.
When we got to Minneapolis, it was so cold, the jet bridge wouldn’t move. (I don’t remember the actual temperature; sorry.) We sat there for 15 minutes again before we could get off the plane. The Lansing flight was leaving from a terminal that was pretty far away, and it was leaving in about 30 minutes, so I flagged down a guy driving one of those golf carts things. That took us to the center, where I had to flag down another ride. Dad was very glad to have the ride; he was reaching his limit.
It was about dusk again.
I checked with the clerk at the Lansing terminal to make sure we had seats, even though the clerk in Phoenix said we were double booked. I got the impression it was a good thing I did that, because she had to punch a bunch of things into the computer. In the end, I got new tickets for us. I think we got the last two tickets, because the plane was packed!
The rice and beans had started their magic. When the plane was up in the air, I felt extremely bloated; so bloated I had to turn down the CranApple juice drink they offer. I like that drink! I think Dad thought I was feeling airsick again, but it was just gas. When we descended in Lansing, the cabin pressure increased again and the bloated feeling went away.
It was nice and dark when we left Minneapolis, and we could see the landscape all lit up; it seemed to go on forever. When we passed over Milwaukee, it was all lit up too, but the lights stopped at an edge that zigzagged. Darkness took over the landscape. It was still clear skies when we started across Lake Michigan, but it was cloudy by the time we were back over land. Somewhere, down there, was another city all lit up; the clouds were backlit from the bottom. I think it was Holland, but I’m not sure. By then the plane was already on it’s way back down.
In Lansing, we had to pass through the clouds to land, of course. When we got below the clouds, suddenly we could see the landscape all lit up again. It didn’t extend out as far as Minneapolis or Milwaukee did, but it was still lit up.
At the baggage claim, our baggage didn’t show up. So we had to go ever to the NWA counter to find out what was going on. While the clerk was helping somebody else with the same problem, Dad spotted somebody dropping off our baggage. To my surprise, the clerk let me behind the counter to grab it; she did verify ownership though. (Funny, there’s nobody at the baggage claim conveyor belt verifying ownership.)
I had to dig my truck out from under the snow. I left Dad at the terminal to keep warm while I did that. When I returned to pick him up, he was walking toward somebody else’s red truck. He looked real surprised when the truck didn’t stop, then somebody else climbed into it. :)
After a quick drive home, I found that my kind neighbor blew out my driveway after the big snowstorm on Tuesday. All I had was the few inches that fell after that. Mom showed up to take Dad back home.
Boy, do I wish I could have stayed in Arizona!
