Maine Part II - Laving On A Jet Plane

And for once, I truly do not know when I'll be back again! That's a cool and im,immensely scary feeling, the idea that I may not get back to familiar territory in quite a while...

Of course, the idea of a jet ride was also a bit nerve wracking because I'd just watched a few episodes of LOST, so maybe I was just projecting. Luckily, I was fairly certain the plane would not crash, at least not on a mysterious island, none of my fellow passengers were quirky and pretty enough.

The Salt Lake City airport is a pretty impersonal affair with big, blocky, generic signs everywhere and utilitarian design, but their help are all hoots, as the excited elderly say. Most were upbeat and funny, friendly and competent. Our bags barely squeaked under the weight limit and were promptly whisked away, hopefully to the same jet that we were headed to, and we hit the first real gauntlet of the trip... The security gates.

I have trouble with these things when I'm not packing a bag, swaddled in layers and encased in a splint and sling. After taking off my shoes, the size 14s filling a tray of their own, removing my laptop - its own tray, removing my coat and cell phone- own trays again, my gloves, hat, scarf, keys, rings watch.... Tray, tray, tray.... My assorted collection of trays made me feel like I was getting lunch for the entire cell block. Then they saw my cast and immediately summoned me to the clear plastic box of humility.

I got wanded, wiped, felt up, had to move a certain way, say the secret code (The rolling rock gathers daisies when no one is looking) and allow them to retain one inch of gauze, a tooth and three fingernail clippings.

Then we were through! The remainder of the ride to JFK was pretty uneventful. We rode JetBlue, which is a pretty cool joint. They give you unlimited snacks, have in seat TVs which thankfully, you can turn off, and the seats were pretty comfy. We sat next to a gentleman who was clearly going home from Sundance and may have been someone worth noting, but he was asleep a good chunk of the time, swaddled in $300 Bose headphones or watching 70's era David Bowie music videos. He did have a nice leather satchel and a simple rolling carry-on and moved about easily, as opposed to my 40lb messenger bag and bad wing.

I sat with my broken arm against the window and it worked pretty well, just some jarring, though I kept dropping things down the side and not being able to retrieve them. The nice asian lady behind us found some gum, a book light, a pen and my scarf on top of her carry-on when we landed.

I was interesting to ride a red-eye flight, most of the people slept and seemed quite content to. I tried, but being a non-sleeper anyway, found myself looking out the window at the sparkling towns below and reading quite a lot of the time.

JFK was a better airport. Clean, artsy, full of swank restaurants and stores, apart from the ungodly weight of my bag, we actually enjoyed our layover there, the only time I've been in New York. We had a goofy little omlet at a crowded restaurant and sat and read until our flight left.

The second jet was smaller, but the seats were actually more comfortable. The ride was a bit choppy and we were serviced by a young lady in a short skirt that seemed utterly sick and miserable and a handsome black man in glasses that was pretty hilarious.

I discovered here that I am utterly crap at photos with my SLR and a busted arm, taking a few shots of our first view of Portland Maine as we landed. It was a relatively painless process to rent the car, though I thought it odd that they didn't blink at the idea of renting it to a one-armed man, and we piled into our compact dark red Kia to explore our new home for the first time!


..... To Be Continued!