Florida 2010

This morning has been an interesting morning. I got up in plenty of time to make it to the plane, by getting up at 3 a.m., which to any normal human being who isn’t still partying at that hour, is just ugly.

I will say one thing however. It was really handy to have the hotel right across the street from terminal 2 at O’Hare. Terminal 2 happens to be the same terminal that houses the airline I took today, which turned out to be a good thing, since it was about 29 degrees this morning. Having to pack lightly (only taking a carry-on bag and not checking any luggage), my wardrobe options were severely limited, and only consisted of shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt. Apparently I didn’t plan ahead very well.

I breezed by ticketing and security, which now that I look back at it today was probably a first. I also made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare, enabling me to be able to get my morning jolt of coffee, and start gawking at people.
Much like the bus depot yesterday, people watching in the airport is a favorite of mine. It’s also, in my honest opinion, has to be any sociologist’s dream.

The first character I ran across today was a man that had to be carted up to the gate in a wheelchair. From where the ticketing counter was, the security gate, and ultimately the final boarding gate, this was quite a hike. On the way, and immediately inside the Delta concourse, the McDonalds restaurant was a beacon to just about everyone passing through security. What didn’t make sense to me was that upon getting to the gate, the man got out of the wheelchair, sat down at the gate, and then immediately got up again and left. I wasn’t paying much attention to him, but several minutes later, this same “disabled” man came back with two coffees and some breakfast food.

I’m usually pretty sympathetic to any poor soul needing additional assistance. But
this man was a complete opportunist.

Speaking of breakfast sandwiches, I also observed one young guy consume more McDonalds’ breakfast food at one sitting than I have ever seen before in my life. As I was sitting near the fake paraplegic, I watched, in amazement and horror, this young 25-ish male consume 3 to 4 breakfast sandwiches, 4 hash browns, and two trays of pancakes and sausage. I could feel my arteries clogging just watching the guy.

After watching the human garbage disposal for a while, and gagging in the process, there was another woman with very curly fake blonde hair prancing around the gate area. For lack of a name, I called her Curly Sue. With severe and dramatic facial makeup, big circular oversized Hollywood sunglasses, and a huge head (attached to a rotund body) of blond curly hair, she passed by where several people were sitting, including me, with her faux-alligator fire engine red roll-along carry on bag. With no regard for the other bags that people had sitting by them, Curly Sue traipsed through a myriad of bags, pulling her red reptilian bag behind her. When she approached a bag jam of bags, she proceeded to keep pulling, bumping, pulling, nudging, and bumping all of the other bags surrounding the path in which she wished her bag to roll through, hoping someone would move their bag to make her job easier.
Of course, after 2 minutes, no one did, which prompted her to finally pick up her bag and carry it with her the rest of the way to her seat.

This wasn’t the only issue Curly Sue had. Much like the Empress that I mentioned in my China travelogue, Curly Sue needed to sit in an exit row on the plane, since she needed space as she was not feeling very well. She also managed to pronounce it to about 25 people that were sitting around her. Unlike the Empress however, once she got what she wanted, she shut up for the rest of the trip.

Well I managed to make it to Atlanta ahead of schedule by about 20 minutes, which gave me about 3.5 hours to figure out what to do while waiting for my connecting flight. I decided that I needed to have some brunch, and figured the smartest thing to do was to get to my appropriate terminal and look for something. The Atlanta airport has about 6 different terminals all lined up parallel to each other, and lettered in order, A, B, C, D, E, and for whatever reason, T. I'm assuming an expansion is in order. Conveniently, they are all interconnected by an underground subway. Of course, my arrival happened to be in terminal A, and my departing flight was in terminal D.

I got to the terminal and where my gate was to be. By this time, it was 10 am (9am CST) and I was hungry. I stopped at a Phillip’s restaurant, and had buffalo butterfly shrimp. I then managed to get on my plane to Panama City, Florida without incident, and arrived a half hour earlier than I had intended.

My mom picked me up, and we headed back to the beach house. Stopping at Toucan’s restaurant for a late lunch/early supper in Mexico Beach, I was able to have awesome bay scallops, deep fried pickles, and Yuengling beer (which I will say IS my favorite).

We got back to the beach house, unloaded what little I had and strolled along the beach, before falling asleep for the evening. Florida’s panhandle is definitely a place I love to come, and am looking forward to the rest of the week ahead.