Magical Mystery Tour

I write to you know from the Philadelphia international airport, Terminal F gate 12. Also known as
"The Planes To The Middle of NOWHERE" terminal awaiting my flight to New Haven Connecticut. This journey started for me at around 6AM this morning when I awoke from an odd night of sleep. I reached the New Bern "Airport" at roughly 8 am for my 9:30 flight. If you have never been to EWN (New Bern City code) allow me to describe it for you. 2 gates: 1 used by USair that runs 5/6 flights per day to Charlotte, and one for Delta, who runs 1 flight/day to Atlanta. 90% of the 'airport' lies in front of the security "checkpoint" which is newer than the rest of the place. The people that run the ticketing counter also are the ground crew, and the baggage handlers.

Back to the story. I arrive at 8am for my 9:30 flight. There two lines, longer than 20 people each stacked up in front of the USAir desk. In an airport whose flights carry a max of 15 people, this is bad news.

Turns out that the two flights to Charlotte afore mine were cancelled due to bad weather. Took me 1.5 hours but I got to the front of the line to reschedule my delayed flights. After checking my baggage and getting my new tickets I sit down to check my morning email. Five minutes later an announcement rings out over the terminal. My flight has been cancelled. Joy. Rapture. These are the emotions of a stranded passenger.

So I get back in line. There are still people there from when I arrived this morning. Oi.

Turns out I cant get to New Haven today from New Bern. Good news! They'll taxi me to another shitball airport in Jacksonville so I can do the standard Charlotte, Philly, NH route.

Fast forward to Jacksonville. Im Flagged for special screening...guess I was the lucky ticket that day. Im not on any watch lists that I know of and I work for a government contractor so this is an unusual treat for me. Unfortunately I forgot to take my leatherman out of my carryon...there goes 60 bucks. The one redeeming feature of Jville airport is that the Marines use the tarmac as a training area for their H-53 pilots so while waiting for my new flight I got to watch a chopper take off and land a few times.

The shortcut to where I am now is that I had a mad dash in Charlotte, they closed the doors right behind me and a comfortable layover in philly. Needless to say its been a long day. And I still have a flight on an old Dash-8 prop plane (I call them Bumblebees) to contend with before Im done.

I never have easy travel days...its part of the magic of living in a city where I have to connect to get anywhere and usually going to places I have to connect to get too. Good news Is Im racking up miles and legs for personal travel.

And Im not done travelling yet. Still have a trip to pittsburgh a week from today and another short hop to Pax River MA in a few weeks

So for now I say bon nuit