By Mike Johnson
Travel is adventure.
Some planned, most not.
On paper, I had 54 minutes between planes.
In reality, this was all eaten by waiting for a broken plane to be moved from our arrival gate’s parking spot.
The 64 minute flight arrived on time but spent 55 minutes on the ground waiting to park.
Imagine running your airline so tight that there's no flexibility to just park in another open gate.
The wait was 45 minutes to park. To amplify the frustration, it took another 10 minutes for the ground crew to open the door.
But I didn't give up. With wind sprints between moving walkways, an angel driving one of those airport carts, and a 10-minute boarding extension,
I made it as the last person on the plane.
For a three and a half hour flight.
Without food.
I only needed five minutes to buy a sandwich, but the parking snafu eliminated that.
So I survived on pretzels and a $10 airline snack box.
The rental car started sketchy, their inventory of my class of car depleted.
They offered an upgrade to giant SUVs but being in a strange place, I declined and accepted something smaller.
The car’s Bluetooth synced to my iPod on the first try.
This was needed because I was visiting a place with many music-tied memories.
The car was perfect in every other way, so all good there.
Then the hotel.
A known chain.
Should be safe.
Oops.
Ugly room.
Blow dryer broken.
Night stand light flickered and died when I plugged in the tablet charger.
Then the bulb randomly flicked on like a camera flash every five minutes.
I removed the bulb because the plug snaked deep under the bed.
The microwave didn’t work.
The showerhead, which should’ve had 100 small streams, had nine working.
And these were clumped together, giving me three thin jets.
Ice pick jets.
Turning the showerhead adjustment only made there be zero jets.
The Internet took 10 minutes to bring up the password page.
Speeds were between dead and crawl.
But here I am.
I initially decided to find another hotel.
Then thought I’d just laugh and enjoy the random defects as they appear.
It’s not difficult to imagine there being more.
But I’ll be spending my days in the outer world, in the perfect car, in the tropical weather.
Navigating a few first-world problems is a good reminder of my many blessings.
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More: On the return home, after landing in Denver, the plane had to wait 20 minutes for a gate to open AGAIN.
Then when departing the Denver gate for Cody, the plane taxied for 25 minutes due to getting a runway change after leaving the gate.
It was only a 60 minute flight so passengers were joking that the pilot had decided to drive halfway home and then fly the rest.
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