Monday, my trip back , started out gray and gloomy. I borrowed the Mom-mobile and went down to Jackson City Park
This used to be the old swimming pool:
and then there's the rock garden:
and Hubble Creek:
I visited the city lake before dropping by Maple Dr
I filled it up with gas and we headed out to Cape. We had lunch at Logan's and the proceed over to Cape Rock Park. This is a Rock that juts out into The Mississippi(until the Railroad demolished part of it), It's where the "Cape" in Cape Girardeau comes from(the other part from Jean Girardot, the first European settler):
This ,allegedly, is Mr. Louis Lorimer. No ankle length ponytail, and no half Shawnee - half European mode of dress. He also doesn't look Half Native American:
We then went to the mall and looked at luggage. My old Olympia carry-on was falling apart, and we looked at some replacements before beading for the Airport.
Once we got to CGI, it was raining cats and dogs. The Plane that was to perform the 2:00 Flight was sitting at the terminal(CGI only has one gate.) It was grounded due to low visibility.
Mom was concerned that she would have to take me to Saint Louis. She started having me call her friends, one of whom called the shuttle service. I talked to the Gate Agent ,who was busying rebook several other folk with tighter connections than mine. He nodded that would be flying, and I understood he had other things to do. I bid the shuttle driver adieu
Finally, at 4, it was clear enough to get started. My flight was supposed to leave at 4:50, and since I was there, Cape Air gave me a boarding pass for the 2:00 flight. With the weather, I decided to leave my camera in the stowed position. We were in Saint Louis in about 40 minutes, safe and sound.
Arriving in Saint Louis can be like visiting a movie set. The airport has two Terminals, Main and East (or 1 and 2). Terminal 1 has four concourses: A,B,C, and D.
In the old days Southwest had the east Terminal, TWA had Concourses B, C, and D, and everyone else was crammed into A. Today Southwest still has the East Terminal all to itself, American, AirTran, Frontier, and Cape air have about half of C, and everyone else is in A. B and D sit vacant, waiting for tenants. I was reminded of this as we pulled in and rounded the end of C. Several air bridges there were meant to service TWA's "Heavy Metal" (747's and L-1011's), but now aren't being used.
Once I got inside, I started to take a tour. I remembered to turn on my cell phone. There was a message from our unit secretary. The billing company had screwed up my timesheet. Was I where I could get on the net and have a look?
I sat down about C19, and got out my netbook. I didn't have any luck with the Wifi, so I wondered back down to the Cape Air Gates and got the timesheet un-mangled. Hooray!
So , I set off on my tour again. I doesn't look too bad here:
at the end is another story:
A sad sight , and I'm not sure what to say. Part of it has been the consolidation of the US Airline industry into 5 Majors (United/Continental, Delta, Southwest/AirTran, American, and US Airways) have left several other Airports with similar gate excess (Pittsburgh and Cincinnati come to mind) The Saint Louis airport has tried to get Both the "New" United and Delta and the other tenants in A to move to C and D (this would get everyone behind a common security perimeter , as A has its own portal) as they have started to increase their flights in response to TWA's demise and American's de-hubbing.
I passed my time by having some Tamales from the Jose Curevo Tequileria and reading some local history books. No Tequila, as I have been accused of getting drunk on root beer.
The flight back was good. We pulled back about 9:00 PM CST. My seatmate and I chatted away most of the night. She promised to send me a case of pistachios from her ranch in Terra Bella, CA.
It was a clear night, so the approach to LAX was breathtakingly stunning. Let's go with a Musical Interlude
LAX was still The busy International airport. I had made another reservation at the Hacienda. It was 11:45 when I got to bed
Tuesday Morning: Yes this is los Angeles:
Went down to the desks, checked out, picked up my car, and headed out to await the Crisis of the day.
Thanks for coming along
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