The Ups and Downs of Travel

I'm in South Dakota for work again. I flew into Sioux Falls today, and I'll be driving with a colleague to St Lawrence, SD tomorrow morning for some gravel road inspections, and then staying in Huron, SD tomorrow night (an hour away from the work site) since it's the only civilized hotel nearby. My travel today has been swinging back and forth between excellent and terrible...

Since I had a morning flight, I just had Stefano drop me off at the airport before he headed to work. We only have one car, and Stefano usually takes the bus to work, but when I'm gone he has to drive so he can come home at lunch and rescue the puppy for an hour. We managed to get to the airport without hitting traffic!

I got chosen to go through the body scanner, which irritates the heck out of me, but it's not like I really have a choice (pat-downs are just as invasive in my opinion). The cranky TSA agent asked me if I had anything in my pockets, and I said "no" since I usually don't put anything in there. But no, I happened to have a hair clip, which apparently they could see on the scanner, and even after I showed her what it was, she had to do a partial pat-down of my right leg since that's the pocket it was in. Oh and she glared at me when I realized that I had something in my pocket, and everything she said to me was so mumbled I had to have her repeat it at least once.

Coincidentally, a friend of mine posted an article on facebook about Israeli airport security vs. ours. Their's requires trusted, intelligent, and well-trained employees, whereas ours have trained monkeys with no free will and no ability to use their own judgment. Ugh.

But I survived. I don't exactly have any choices; I have to travel for work, and I live too far away from my family to drive everywhere. I tried not to let it bug me, and headed off to my gate.

I was at my gate about two hours before my flight, but the last flight was just leaving from my gate, so it was empty and I snagged a seat by a power outlet and got an hour of work done on my laptop. Bought a tasty salad from the deli kiosk by the gate, and got on my flight.

Which turned out to only be about half-full. I also managed to end up on the one daily Denver-to-Sioux-Falls flight, which is on a real plane (Airbus A319) instead of a regional jet. RJs are cramped and loud, and it takes forever to board since everyone insists that their huge bag will fit in the undersized overhead bins, and they almost never do. Or the person has to try it facing every possible direction before it fits.

So I enjoyed an entire row to myself, had a chance to watch some TV on my laptop (I brought DVDs), got a whole can of soda since there were so few of us, and got off the plane quickly after they hooked up the jet bridge.

Navigated the airport (which I know by heart since I've been here five times in the last 13 months) and grabbed my bag, and called my hotel for the "shuttle".  "Oh, I'll call Yellow Cab for you".  For some reason, it took them half an hour to get there to pick me up (during which I'm standing outside in 30 degree weather), the cab they sent was a relic from the 80s, and the cabbie insisted on "making small talk" aka grilling me about where I was from, why I was traveling, if I had been there before, etc.  Despite the fact that I was reading something on my phone so he would get the idea that I didn't want to talk to him.  Oh, and he didn't open the trunk for me (even though I had two bags and a purse), and didn't offer once (at the airport or at the hotel) to help me with my bags.  Seriously, the hotel seems to have contracted the cheapest, laziest cab company to do their airport pickups, and must pay them next to nothing to have them treat me this badly.  And pet peeve: free airport taxis is not the same thing as a free airport shuttle.  Don't advertise a shuttle if all you do is call the shadiest cabbie in town and tell them to get over the the airport whenever it's convenient for them.

To top it all off, the hotel is old, walls are badly patched, the desk lamp is halfway broken, and there is road construction going on outside.  Lovely.  That's ok; I might have revenge. We're supposed to stay here Thursday night, too, but I just emailed our travel agent to see if anywhere else in town has rooms and a hotel shuttle.
P.S. The front desk had a jar of cookies (Country Inns usually do), and one of them had a bite taken out of it.  No joke.