Because I live in the boondocks (Erwin,TN isn’t the end of the world, but it’s a short drive from here) people often ask me if I don’t hate having to travel from small airports, rather than the mega hubs. The answer is no, not at all. I like smaller airports.
Smaller airports are just flat out more convenient. Parking is cheaper and quicker, check-in is quicker, and one doesn’t have to walk as far to reach the gate.
Yes, departing from a smaller airport does mean that I have to connect through Megalopolex, but I don’t have to drive to city traffic to get to Magalopolex, or pay the borderline rapacious parking fees there. All I have to do is change airplanes.
Not long ago, while traveling during one of my “bad back” experiences, I arranged in advance for one of those courtesy carts to meet me in Megalopolex and deliver me to the gate for my connecting flight. It didn’t happen. Earlier this week, my son was traveling with his four-year-old son — who is, BTW, my only grandchild and a handsome genius to boot — with only 35 minutes to change airplanes at Megalopolex. Again, we arranged in advance for a cart to meet his flight in Megalopolex. Again, it didn’t happen.
Total change of subject…
We passed a great milestone recently when a privately-built spacecraft delivered supplies/equipment to the space station. Then this week the media announced that NASA has secretly been flying a shuttle lookalike in space. I don’t know exactly what to believe about that. Did they keep it a secret just so nobody would know if it was less than successful? That sounds like shades of the old USSR during the space race of the 1960s.
I wonder how the private spacecraft builders feel about that? Isn’t this supposed to be the much-ballyhooed beginning of the space age for privately built spacecraft? A fortune in private funding has been invested in such craft. Must they now compete with NASA-funded craft?
I don’t know. Do you?
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