What I See on the Road

Well today I am flying from Wilmington, NC to Oakland, CA. My route takes me through Charlotte and Phoenix so it's going to be a long day. It started at 2:30 AM when I woke up before the alarm to get started. The Wilmington airport is 60+ miles north and to catch the early flight that means leaving the house at 4-4:30 AM. Good thing I was not on the absolute first flight that leaves at 5:30 AM. ICK.

I have also decided I was meant to be born farther south than I am now. It was 39 degrees this morning when I got to the airport. I know that doesn't sound all that cold but to me it might as well have been 15 degrees. I'm sure glad I don't have to live in an area where I'd have to use a snow blower or plow all winter.

I am sitting in the Charlotte airport on a two hour lay-over. Every year they put up two Christmas trees made of live Poinsettias. I thought I'd share a picture with everyone since you may not travel this route to see the tree.

I hope to write a bit more this week. I've had a major block on writing the past few months. When I'm working it's "nose down and give it 150%" and when I'm off I am truly OFF and have no desire to write. I guess this is what writers block is all about. It's not that nothing has happend, its more that I'm too lazy to write about it or document it with photographs.

I hope to get out this week in the San Francisco area and see something other than the inside of a conference room or inside of a motel room. Wish me luck! Maybe I can reach that goal this week.

A different route this week – Charlotte

For years (about 8) I flew USAirways as my primary airlin. Since the hub airport for them in this area is Charlotte I connected there weekly for years. I changed airlines when they were having so many issues with the merger between USAir and America West. After a while I just got tired of the issues and switched over to Delta. I started to switch back about 2 years back then as soon as I did they started charging extra for everything from cokes to pillows. I was waiting on them to charge for seatbelts and trips to the bathroom. So I again just decided to stick with Delta.

This week the prices of the airline tickets forced me to take USAirways through Charlotte on my way to Houston. They have stopped charging for drinks but they have not reinstated other things like the 500 mile minimum credit for a flight. They still charge for checked bags so more people try to overstuff the overheads. They have about one of the best on-time ratings of the major carriers. It’s still not enough to make me come back to the airline though. It takes a long time to build a status on an airline and I just don’t feel the need to go through that again.

I did enjoy flying through Charlotte because I haven’t done that in a long time. It’s one of the favorite places I have ever lived. It made me a little home sick just seeing the skyline when we were landing. I worked for about 4 years in Uptown and watched them tear down a building and start building a new skyscraper.

Charlotte calls it “Uptown” instead of “Downtown” because it sounds more positive to be called UP. The uptown area looked like it was 2 weeks old when I moved there and to this day it looks like a brand new city.

Of all the places I’ve lived I would say Charlotte is the top of the list to this day. I had a job I loved, a city I was proud to call home. It’s funny as much as I enjoyed it there that I have not been back in over 7 years other than to fly through the airport. I guess I need to schedule a vacation to go there sometime. Maybe I need to go to the Southern Living Home Show or something fun like that.