Airport Musings

The trip I undertake today is not a short one--up and out of Easton at 0630 and I will eventually land in Honolulu at nearly 0100  EST tomorrow time.  At the moment, I find myself at Newark's "Liberty" Airport waiting on the long leg West with few moments to spend with you whilst I wait on my lunch.

Let's start with lunch.  Actually lets start with airports.  I really do love this place.  It is large, spacious, full of good shops and chock full o' restaurants. My lunch today will be taken at "Gallagher's Steakhouse" in the C 120-139 terminal.  How wonderful it is to eat in a legitimate steakhouse in an airport, rather than grabbing one of those foul Wolfgang Puck sandwiches from the kiosk manned by the indifferent soul assigned there.  No--instead, I will eat like a titan prior to my 10.5 hour flight.  (For the record, yesterday's weigh in was 188.8).  Perhaps this lunch will be sufficient to carry me the whole way, offering the promise of eating healthy and well.  I am breaking with tradition, in that I have ordered the roasted half-chicken, rather than one of the tempting mammalian quadruped offerings.  I'm sure it will be wonderful--maybe I'll have steak when I get to Hawaii at the end of a long day...

What a great name for an airport, no?  "Liberty".  Pure and simple.  Not some paean to a dead politician, just a simple statement of a democratic virtue.  Nicely done, New Jersey.  Nicely done.

I will be in Hawaii through Wednesday evening, at which time I will red-eye back to the states in time to see the Kitten/Kittens off on the eighth grade ski-trip. None of us are skiers, by the way.  In fact, the Kitten stated positively the other day that she "hates" skiing.  But the elder Kitten would not be denied this right of passage, and a parent must be present. I will find myself one again solo at the homestead, but this time only for two nights.  I look forward to the red-eye, unless of course it is populated by 15 year olds at the height of their pubescent tittering like one was last year from California to BWI.  No, in general, I can put the mask on and the earplugs in and wake up in time for breakfast and landing.  Usually, well rested.

Hawaii beckons as a result of some work I'm currently undertaking.  Again, it will be work all day...though this time I hope to remain healthy and at least go out and have a couple of nice dinners.  By this time in the last visit, I had all the tell-tale signs of the oncoming ague that would befall me. Fingers crossed, I feel fit as a fiddle.

For those interested, I have again adorned myself in standard traveling attire:  UVA ballcap, long-sleeve Tshirt, blue blazer, adidas track pants and sneakers.  Very comfy, and it keeps the blazer from becoming a wrinkly mess.  I fancy myself as resembling a tennis star in transit, minus the tennis rackets, any hint of a tennis game or athleticism, and 8 inches of height.   

My plane arrives at 7:41 local in Hawaii tonight--which gives me one hour and twenty minutes to get in front of a TV to watch Downton Abbey.  For those of you who haven't taken up the habit, I highly recommend it.  Maggie Smith plays the Dowager Countess, and she gives two or three classic lines each show. 

The chicken was superb, as was the sauteed baby spinach.  Now this is travel.

I read a lot of Paul Theroux while I travel, a great novelist and travel writer.  He hates plane trips, and I have to agree with him--calls it "transit" rather than "travel". He prefers the train (as do I) but find it difficult to make a transpacific voyage by locomotive.  Theroux is a marvelous writer--but a bit of a lefty, and annoyingly so.  Reading his travelogues in the 80's, he never misses a chance to take a swipe at Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. 

Ok, that's all for now.  I need to settle up with the good folks who provided such a wonderful meal.