An Infrequent Traveller: Musings on getting around

I have made exactly four sets of airplane trips in my adult life: that is, four trips somewhere and four trips back. Across that decade, several things have changed, and maybe they're more noticeable to an Infrequent Traveller.

Strangely enough, I think airport lineups are getting better. Maybe it was a fluke, but it seemed to me that even the dreaded security and customs lines at Pearson (Toronto) moved quicker and smoother than they did in the past. Is it because passengers are now so familiar with taking shoes off and showing liquids, that things flow better? Or are the agents just moving them through better?

Where I did notice a hangup, more than once, was with the greater number of people bringing carry-on bags, some of those possibly over the size limit, aboard relatively small airplanes. These planes have three seats on the left and two seats on the right, and the overhead compartments are correspondingly deeper on the left. Passengers were having a terrible time finding places for their bags, especially on the smaller side. The airline is obviously aware of this problem, because they were asking for volunteers to check their bags (for free). On the return trip, I took them up on it, because I had a connecting flight with little extra time, and I was happy to have one less thing to trundle through the airport and fight for space with on the plane. (And my carry-on did get to Toronto with no problems.)

Airport food is horrendously expensive, even at the grab-and-go booths. Sometimes you are just stuck with it, so be prepared. But even short flights usually offer free drinks and snacks, so it's not worth paying for airport coffee or pop or bottled water if you're boarding soon anyway. I did buy a sandwich during one stopover, and a fruit salad while running through the Atlanta airport, see above.

It is definitely an advantage these days to have a computer, phone, or other device to keep you current on check-ins and changes. It's also a good idea to have a plan for accessing airport Wifi, if (like me) your life doesn't run with a phone. I put a shortcut to a site called Boingo on my home screen, which helps access public Wifi that doesn't just pop up automatically.

The biggest change, I think, was not in the physical or digital navigation of things but in my own perceptions, and the fact that (even being very Infrequent) I don't get mixed up as much anymore. The first time I ever came back through Toronto, I got hopelessly lost trying to find the shuttle van home. Turned out I was on the wrong floor of the terminal. Now I'm not even sure how I could have done that, because the van counter isn't that hard to find. But I was the kid who got lost coming back from the bathroom on the first day of school, so anything's possible. Moral of the story here: you're not stupid if you get mixed up in a new place; and after two or three times, you are going to feel, if not exactly at home, at least a little more in control.

Nature quote for the day: CM reviews John Burroughs (Parents' Review Volume Two)

"BOOKS," [link fixed] by "The Editor" (Charlotte Mason).  The Parents' Review, Volume 2, no. 2, 1891/92, pg. 391-394.

"Pepacton, by John Burroughs. The 'Pepacton' appears to be the Indian name for the eastern branch of the Delaware, the author's native stream; and one summer he takes a naturalist's voyage down stream in a boat of his own building, and he tells us all he sees and hears and does as he punts down stream or camps on the banks with the peculiar charm of the Home Naturalist. Now he reminds you of Gilbert White, now of Gilpin, now of Isaac Walton, and you get to know the blue bird, the wood chuck, the hickory, the oriole, just as you know thrushes and tomtits and hawthorn bushes at home. Then, there is in the same little volume an 'Idyl of the Honey Bee,' and, 'A Bunch of Herbs,' wherein he is envious, for no American poet may see such a sight as Wordsworth's 'Host of golden daffodils;'

"but then, does he not give us a list of upwards of forty species of fragrant native wild flowers and flowering shrubs and trees to make up--several of them strangers to us?

"In Fresh Fields, Mr. Burroughs comes to England, chiefly to see what Nature is about with us.

"The publisher (David Douglas, Edinburgh) has done good service in introducing Mr. John Burroughs's 'Six Books of Nature, Animal Life, and Literature' to English readers in 'one shilling volumes.' They are, 'Winter Sunshine,' 'Locusts and Wild Honey,' 'Birds and Poets,' 'Pepacton,' 'Wake-Robin,' and 'Fresh Fields.' We cannot imagine a more delightful birthday gift for an intelligent boy or girl."



(Check out the little girl with the huge hairbow at 1:50!  Some comments on the film are here.)

Book cover photo found here.

Sunday reading

Life Under Compulsion: The Dehumanities, by Anthony Esolen at Front Porch Republic.  Part of a series mentioned at Suitable for Mixed Company.  

“Here is one,” says the father [of a new baby], “who will possess the capacity to embark upon independent research, who will present arguments that balance claim and counterclaim.”

“Here is one,” says the mother, “who will meet the Common Core Requirement anchor standards and high school grade-specific standards, which work in tandem to define college and career readiness expectations, the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity.”

I did not make that last sentence up.

Napoleon and his tub tantrum (History lesson)

I don't know if this is an apocryphal story, but it appears in Edith Deyell's textbook Canada: the New Nation.

"Great men like Napoleon sometimes change their minds.  When they do, they often make it known with a thud.  Out of a clear sky, the emperor called his finance minister to him on April 11th, 1803, and said: 'I renounce Louisiana...with the greatest regret.  To attempt to retain it would be folly.'

"When his advisers tried to reason with him, he would not listen.  Two of his brothers rushed to argue with him while he was in the bath tub; but he ended the quarrel by splashing water on them.  He was the emperor and he had decided to sell Lousiana."  --Chapter 2, "The United States Doubles in Size"