Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Flying into LAX

Well, I left Austin today to begin my journey. I'm flying to Brisbane, Australia, and have a layover of several hours at the Los Angeles airport.  On the way here, the plane flew pretty close to El Paso, where I grew up. I didn't see El Paso, because I was on the wrong side of the plane, but I immediately recognized the mountains heading up north from there. My suspicions were confirmed when we flew over Kilbourne Hole, and the other hole next to it (can't remember the name right now but I'll probably look it up later and post it), which were impossible to mischaracterize. I recognized it immediately, and the road that leads to it from Canutillo.

After that,  we followed I-10 for a while, and I'm pretty sure I recognized Silver City and the Gila Wilderness. But I didn't think to take pics. Also, my phone didn't have a place to charge on the plane, so I was trying to conserve juice.

The next thing I was trying to spot was the Grand Canyon. But no dice. I think we flew too far south to catch that. I remember seeing it from above, and flying over massive fires near there, several years ago when I was on my way to Hawaii. But on that flight,  I went through San Francisco, not LA.

The plane arrived in LA a few minutes ago,  and supposedly the flight to Australia was one gate over. But, really, that was where we got herded onto the tarmac to take a shuttle to the tiny terminal where the Australian flight is (and where I am currently huddled on the floor next to the only available power outlet to type this).

I suspect that the woman who herded us onto the shuttle didn't speak much English. Both the guy in front of me and I asked her if there were places to eat in that terminal, and she said yes. Bullshit. I considered asking her in Spanish, but hesitated because who am I to assume that she speaks Spanish, even though she probably did. 

This terminal is a desolate island of human despair. Just as well...LAX is so fucking expensive to eat at that I'm probably better off fasting. I do have a couple of snack bars, and I've dutifully snarfed one down. I'm spoiled by the cheap food at the Austin airport, where I had a Thundercloud hummus veggie delight, and ate in front of the Saxon Pub listening to live music.

So here I sit on the floor (not even aspiring to the Group W bench), waiting for Godot to come and tell us that the plane is ready for us filthy primates to infest. Salut.

1 comment:

  1. You can't get anything you want at Godot's LAX restaurant. ♬

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