Day One, Part One

4:00 AM – Time for a little sleep, very little.

7:00 AM – Up and at it. Still some last minute packing to do and the flights to prepare for. Natasha and Josh will be here in three hours to take us to the airport (thanks again guys) and we have to be ready. Things still to do: clean bathroom, kitty box, feed cat, finish packing day packs and make sure we aren’t forgetting anything too important.

9:00 AM – Remembering that we only have one iPod to share, we decide to make sure that we have all the music we need. Justyn prepares a new list of 1100 songs that should fill up the rest of the iPod and all is set to go. Just have to wait for the files to load…. and load…. and load…. damn should have used the fire wire.

10:00 AM – Natasha and Josh arrive in their white chariot and we are ready to go. Goodbye house, goodbye cat and hello Europe.

10:45 AM – Check-in at counter. Our large suitcase is 10lbs overweight, we probably packed too much, so we have to move some things around to get it all to weight. After we move things around it occurs to me that we should have paced differently in the first place. We should have used the small bag for clothes enough for the first part of the trip and saved the large suitcase for the longer part. Make mental note for third part of trip. We finally hand our luggage off to the counter person and we head for the gate. Next step security.

If I had to pick my least favorite part of traveling by air, it would have to be the security check. I know that they are only doing their jobs and that there are laws to follow but, do they really have to be that damn uppity. Because we are traveling for the purposes of photography we have a significant amount of light sensitive materials with us. Most of these are quite sensitive and would not survive the X-Ray that they put checked luggage through so we have to carry them on. Besides if our bags end up hand searched and they open the boxes / bags of photosensitive materials they are a total loss. So, it seemed easier to just carry it with us and deal with it at security.

Fortunately we were leaving on an early afternoon flight on a weekday so there was not a lot of traffic through the security check and that meant no long lines. As we approach the x-ray machines I ask if I can have one of my bags hand searched so I wouldn’t have to put some of the things through x-ray. I was pretty sure (and Justyn assured me) that the solar plates would be fine in the x-ray but I have never traveled with orthographic film before and had no idea what effect it would have and I would rather be safe than really sorry.

I handed the hand check only items to the TSA agent and he took them away. When he returned, he told me that if they could not open them, I would have to send it through the x-ray or, I couldn’t take it on the plane with me, period. I tried my best to explain that the materials were light sensitive blah, blah, blah, blah and the result, he couldn’t care less. So I ended up putting them through the x-ray, along with my boots, and everything else we were carrying. Unfortunately, I won’t know until the last week of Florence if they are safe.

Once beyond the “you can take a machete on a plane but not a tripod security”, we were off to our concourse. For those who have not had the pleasure of flying out of Denver International Airport, a bit of advice: whatever you want, you’ll find it on Concourse A. I don’t care if you are flying out of Concourse C, if there is something you want or need before getting on your flight stop at Concourse A, take care of it and then proceed to your destination. In fact, you can actually bypass the long cattle heard of a security line and walk to Concourse A and go through security there it will save you a trip (one possible exception, but more on that later).

We unfortunately missed our opportunity to shop duty free since our ticket is from Denver to Chicago where we change planes to London. I tried to convince the woman that we have very little time in Chicago and that we wouldn’t tell anyone if she just let us do a small bit of shopping, but she wouldn’t have it. When logic didn’t work I thought about appealing to her emotion: “Look, I am traveling with an angry ex-gutterpunk who is about to get on a plane for a really long time. Just let me buy the damn cigarettes. No one needs to know. Please, for the sake of our relationship, sell us the Camels.”

Turned away from the duty free woman, who was really quite nice, we set out to find an iron lung which is about the only thing that Concourse B is really good for. So, back we went on the train to Concourse B where Justyn had is last cigarette before the flight and if we don’t have enough time in Chicago, his last ever. With a one drink minimum, the smoker’s lounge is possibly the most interesting room in the whole building.

I remember years ago I used to work for a company that had a room on the top floor that all the smokers could go to. I worked in a call center, which meant that one out of every three employees smoked, and they all used this room. The ceiling tiles were long turned from white and had taken on the rough color that Pepsi has around an ice cube. The vents that brought air into (and presumably out of) the room were caramelized with smoke and the walls matched with square spots of lighter tones where art used to hang. The whole room was something out of a horror film and I could just feel cancer on the walls growing in the Petri dish. The smoker’s lounge reminded me of a slightly cleaner version of that room.

So after we both had a cigarette, he smoked I just breathed, it was finally off to our gate and ready to board.

12:30 – Our flight is late, which given that we (and our luggage) only have 45 minutes to make it from gate to gate in Chicago is a problem. I foresee us never returning to the windy city again.

12:45 – Two minutes before our flight was supposed to take off, we are finally leaving the gate. Now begins the process that I hate. As a child I used to love the sensation of a plane taking flight. The pressure forcing me back into my seat, the roar of the engine, the rush of the air as it glides gently over the wings and body lifting us into the air. Sometimes I would crave the sensation, months away from taking flight and would just lie face up in a field of grass trying my best to use gravity to recreate the sensation, but without success. I can’t tell you precisely when or how I began to dread takeoffs and landings but the cravings of childhood are now far behind me. I particularly hate taking off from DIA and flying East. I don’t like the way the plane always rocks and rolls with the slight sensation of dropping in my stomach. I have tried so many things to get overcome this borderline fear of flying and the thing I have found works the best is a strong hand to hold with my eyes closed and a chanting a mantra.

Once happily in the air, I am usually fine unless the turbulence lasts too long, then I start to get tense and it is back to the happy place. So, that is where I find myself. Somewhere over the Midwest, six miles above the Earth held up by moving air and the hope of every passenger onboard.

16:00 Chicago

We managed to arrive into Chicago on time and make our connection. We even had a chance to drop by the duty free shop so Justyn could get his smokes. All told we were in Chicago for an hour and when the plane managed to taxi and actually leave the ground I breathed a sigh of relief. We haven’t had the best track record traveling through Chicago so, any trip where we mange to successfully leave, is a good thing.

As the plane began it’s trip down the runway, I realized that perhaps it isn’t taking off that bothers me, it is taking off on a small plane. Being on the larger plane definitely helped and when the ride turned rough, I felt a lot better knowing that there was more machine working to keep me in the air.

Other than a few rough patches the flight was uneventful. I didn’t get much sleep, which I had hoped would pass the time and allow me to refresh a bit before the final part of our journey to Paris still, the flight went well.

More to come…. and all from day one.