But only figuratively. Florida has no hills. Well, except the man-made ones. Those are usually sanitary landfills.
We got up at 0myGod thirty on June 16, and drove to the airport, parking in Economy and riding the shuttle to the terminal. Except that it doesn’t stop at the terminal. It stops at Ground Transportation, which is clear over at the garage, so we had to schlep our luggage (3 bags, two backpacks, and my CPAP) over to the terminal to check the three bags. This I vow: Never again. I’ll drop the lady off at the terminal with the bags FIRST, or we’ll just take a cab. The cost of a cab both ways is roughly comparable to 10 days in the economy lot, so it’s basically a wash either way.
By the way, I’m still pissed off at IND for dropping their old policy of allowing handicapped parkers to park in the garage for the economy rate.
We blew through TSA fast. We signed up for Pre-check some weeks back. Frankly I don’t care if my fingerprints and info are in yet another government database; I’m sure they already have a copy of the ones I gave the county (and thus the State Police) for my carry permit. But this makes dealing with TSA much simpler. Except when it doesn’t. See below.
So, our 7:00AM flight was all set to go. Everybody got on the plane without issue. However, the plane had issues. First we were told “just clearing up some paperwork.” Then we were told, “Maintenance is working on an issue and should be done in 15 minutes.” Then we were told, “We need to fly parts in from Midway.” Then we were told, “We’re flying in a whole new plane, too. Let’s all get off and go back to the terminal and wait for it.”
Which we did, politely. It is what it is. They asked us to please remember where we were sitting so we could sit in the same seats on the new plane. I’m not sure what that was in aid of, since they were going to call us in the same order, but the ways of Southwest Airlines are inscrutable.
Next, they told us that they would be calling us up alphabetically to the desk. We assumed they were going to reissue boarding passes. Nope! Because the flight was going to be so late, they handed everyone who’d boarded on time a $200 flight voucher good for a year. That was really nice of them; it paid (in theory) for our rental car. In reality, the lady will use them to go visit her parents later this year. I rarely fly, and when I do, usually someone else is paying for it.
So we sat. And we sat. And we sat some more. They kept coming on the intercom occasionally to let us know that the plane was still at MDW, but it would be taking off shortly. It did finally take off at about 10AM. We were able to board at around 11:30, and the plane raised ground at 12:03 PM (according to the timestamp on my Facebook post). A little over two hours later, we were in Fort Myers, and we got to Naples at around 3, stopping at a local friend’s house to pick up the radio equipment I’d FedEx’ed to them a few days before.
We then proceeded to spend about five days in Naples. We ate well. I made 51 JT9 contacts on 20 meters from the condo living room over the next few days without really trying very hard. The lady spent a good deal of time at the beach. Then we packed it all up and moved it to the Marriott Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa for the lady’s professional symposium.
I didn’t do any radio there because, first, I was afraid I might set off some poorly-wired alarm system with RF, and second, I had to work two days while we were there because I didn’t have enough vacation time to just laze about. So the only day I really had off was Friday. I used part of that day packing the radio equipment back up and getting it to the front desk to be FedEx’ed back home. Of course I missed their pickup, so as far as I know, the package is still sitting at the hotel till they get there today.
We lazed around on Saturday till 2PM, checked out, took the car back to the airport and turned it in, and checked our bags. We then went through the most maddening event of the entire trip: RSW TSA. Apparently “Pre-check” to them means, “Take the blue card and hand it to the magnetometer operator so you don’t have to take your shoes off,” and not much else; we were forced to remove computers from our backpacks AND they made me take my CPAP out of its bag. Which is a royal pain in the ass, because the machine itself is at the bottom of the bag with the hose and mask and power unit all piled in on top and around it (it’s just the way it’s designed). I wouldn’t have been nearly as pissed off about this, though, if it hadn’t been for the tall, mustachioed, moronic Heartbreak Ridge/Full Metal Jacket DI-channeling TSA agent who was shouting at everyone to remove this, remove that, if you’re Pre you only get to keep your shoes on, what part of “everything including CPAPs” did you not understand.
You know — fuck that guy. TSA is going to hear about this, because not only did he piss me off (which doesn’t take much), he also pissed of my normally-unflappable wife, who swore she would be calling TSA on Monday and asking WTF goes on, since we paid for Pre-check which is supposed to ease that entire process. Apparently it only eases it when the local assholes decide that they’ll allow it. Sorry dudes, but I can’t help it that when RSW built their new fancy mid-field terminal, they didn’t build big enough security areas to handle the traffic so you could have a separate Pre-check line.
As for me, the guy is lucky I really wanted to get on that plane and go home, because I damn near decked him.
So we finally got on the plane, which was completely full, so I ended up jammed over against the fuselage in the window seat (which, BTW, is the best seat for a fat boy; there is actually extra room next to the window because of the curve in the fuselage).
Then:
“Ah, we’re just clearing up some paperwork and we’ll roll back as soon as we get that taken care of.”
“Um, maintenance is working on a small issue, but we should be off the ground shortly.”
The lady and I looked at each other and nearly died laughing. “Do you think we’ll get another $400 in vouchers?” she asked. Of course we had to explain this to our seatmate, too.
So then they come on with, “Well, we’ve fixed the problem…anyway, it’s fixed well enough to get to Indianapolis.” How…encouraging. But then we pulled back and took off and actually made it to Indy on time. We retrieved luggage and I left the lady at the terminal and went and got the car, much simpler that way…and then we stopped at Culvers for dinner on the way home and were back in the house by 8PM.
It was a nice trip, except for the TSA jerk at the end. But he, too, shall pass. And he may not have a job much longer if my wife has anything to say about it.