Airport 2010

I was wide awake at 2 AM, fretting a little about the folly that impelled me into the Cocoa Beach junket. I worried about the ice in front of the house, getting in and out of the cab, navigating MSP, and a multitude of other concerns. We left the house before 4, and getting to the airport proved to be as easy as it has been in the past.

Lindbergh Terminal -- son to be Terminal 1 --  itself was as close to a nightmare as a person using a cane, or someone otherwise physically or mentally challenged in some way, could ever imagine. The check-in line was very long, and nowhere was there the promised baggage check-in for people like me who had already checked in online, and paid to check 2 items of luggage. The line took forever, and then we had to start all over again with security.

There was no special accommodation at all for me, or for the very pregnant woman, or for several couples with very young children, some of them looking unhappily roused from sleep. Instead, we all trudged through the line, slowly making our way to the security checkpoint..

I had never been through security before with the new knee. Of course. the alert went off loudly and I was ushered to a small holding pen, the kind you might see at a hog market, where pigs with suspicious credentials might be quarantined. In time (a long time on this already long morning), a female security officer arrived and explained the protocol that would be part of my post-knee replacement security routine. I have read complaints by others about the intrusive procedures, but it all seemed OK to me -- if only I could be sure that such measures actually do deter terrorists!

Unbelievably, we headed to the wrong gate, G22, the gate on our boarding passes, at the very end of the G concourse. Even with the moving sidewalks, it was a very long walk that taxed my diminishing energy reserves. We soon discovered that we had to walk all the way back to G3, and during our trip back we kept hearing "last call for boarding" announcements.

Finally, we were aboard and soon underway. I had to get up several times to stretch my legs but the flight was otherwise uneventful. We did a little useless walking in the Orlando airport but baggage arrived promptly and we picked up our car. Thanks to my friend Jim Darling's advice several years ago, I had checked in yesterday and it was was so easy to simply pick up and ride.

I think the next 10 days will be very restful and helpful to me as I try to improve my energy management. I would not, however, recommend flying to anyone only six weeks post-op, except in an airport where there is some accommodation for a person with limited mobility. Or maybe it's just MSP: service at the Delta counters seems greatly deteriorated since the merger with NWA. I heard a flight attendant tell a passenger that her salary was 40% lower than it had been a few years ago -- I wonder what other factors might have contributed to lower performance and poor customer service?