Clark's Spot

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Roger and I visited New York City yesterday to see the Yankees host the Red Sox in Yankees Stadium. It was the 14th Major League Baseball stadium I’ve visited. I’ll add some pictures shortly.

New York was fun. We ate at Druid’s at 50th and 10th. Neat pub. Very Irish – err Celtic. Enjoy the Irish Soda Bread. Roger recommends the curry. I’m still getting used to smoked salmon. Then we ventured to East 42nd. We saw the United Nations building just as it closed for the day. (The flags were all down already – no good picture.) Afterward, we walked up and down the side streets trying to recognize the flags that flew in front of consulates and permanent missions. (We did OK. Social Studies teachers taught us well.) Finally took the train up to Yankees Stadium walked around a bit and ventured inside.

There was a heckuva wait after the game. It took an hour or two for most of the 55,000-plus fans to clear the area, and we were happy to wait and avoid the crush on a muggy night. But by the time we got back to the parking garage in Hells Kitchen, the 24-hour parking garage had closed for the night. Attendant woke up, gave us the car, and we were on our way back to Scranton – arriving at 5:15 a.m. Work, and the morning alarm, came early this morning.

Oh, the game. Yankees-Red Sox was impressive. It’s not quite Ohio State-Michigan. The fans were happy to sit down most of the time. Friends who backed the rivals teased each other, but there wasn’t the vulgar hostility until late in the game when a couple Sox fans decided they had received their money’s worth and could afford to be thrown out. But the fans were loud and passionate – and it was odd to see a standing crowd cheering for a big pitch in the second inning. Alex Rodriguez hit his 536th home run – tying Mickey Mantle for 13th on the all-time list. Red Sox had the lead late before the Yankees rallied to force extra innings. Brett Gardner, who was called up from AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre about a week before, had the game-winning two-out up-the-middle single in the bottom of the 10th. Home team wins 5-4.

Jessica wakes up early and gets us moving. She wants breakfast. Too tired and mentally exhausted, Jessica and Brian reconstruct the past few hours from text message conversations with their friends and family. It goes something like this:

Jessica and Brian are stuck in Michigan. After our plane arrived in the Detroit airport, Jessica bargained for flights (through Philadelphia) to Scranton on December 27 and a night in a Best Western in Detroit. The shuttle passes us by twice, and Jessica, Brian, and several new friends decide to hail a taxi.

At the hotel, we learn the hotel is full. The only remaining rooms all have problems. The manager decides to bus us across the street for the night. Jessica and Brian check in (at 1:55 a.m.) and go straight to the bar to beat last call. Two drinks later, they grab their bags, coats, and phones and head toward their room.

Jessica and Brian get to the lobby restaurant, but are greeted by a hotel employee offering them a ride to the airport. Jessica (remembering the problems leaving the airport the night before) jumps at the chance. Ten minutes later, we’re being screened at DTW nearly three hours before flight 1776 is scheduled to depart for Philadelphia. (He updates the blog using his phone to pass the time.)

Standing at the line for Starbucks, Jessica examines her boarding pass. She’s in seat 4A – first class! Brian’s shocked, then learns he is in 1A. More than two hours later, he boards the plane, hands over his coat, and graciously accepts a small juice while other passengers trudge past him. Jessica scrambles to the front of the boarding line. The airline employee gives her a nasty look, and Jessica responds with “you just let my husband in.” Jessica boards, takes her juice, and immediately falls asleep as the remainder of the passengers stare enviously at her.

During the flight, Brian learns the dirty little airline secret. Nobody seated in first class paid for the special treatment. Everyone was bumped up as a payoff for delays, cancellations, etc. Whatever. Jessica and Brian weren’t upgraded on their honeymoon. They deserve it this year. They’ll gladly take it as a belated Christmas present.

The rest of the trip is as uneventful and expected as you’d expect by this point. We switch airlines, get new boarding passes, must pass security (again) in Philadelphia. We arrive in Scranton, but there’s no luggage. The next morning, Brian’s suitcase shows up – but there’s no suitcase for Jessica. She and Brian finally pick it up from the baggage guy in a CVS parking lot on their way to her parents to celebrate faux Christmas on the 28th.

“We’ll drive,” Jessica tells her family, “the next time we go somewhere.”

Ohio and Michigan fought over the Glass City in the 1830s. Ohio “won” when Congress decided the Buckeye state would keep Toledo and Michigan would receive the Upper Peninsula.

So when Jessica and Brian left Port Columbus (and Ohio) for the Detroit airport (and Michigan), how did they end up in Toledo?

“Sorry folks the weather suddenly got bad” as we were circling Detroit over and over and over again, the pilot announced when he told Jessica, Brian, and the other passengers of their new destination. “We’ll talk to you again upon landing.”

He sure did talk to us again when he landed. The pilot also got his boss, and his boss’s boss on the radio. Turns out, the pilot had just finished a 16-hour day, and he really wanted to get to his hotel room in the Detroit metropolitan area. Our airline did not normally run flights through the Toledo airport so we didn’t even get to pull up to a gate. The pilot was not in a mood to sit on the tarmac in Toledo. (Neither were his passengers.) Before we had much of a chance to complain, however, the pilot had radioed half of the Northwest supervisors asking for the chance to take off again.

The pilot eventually summed everything up for us. Company policy (if not federal regulations) mandate that planes must have 2400 feet visibility to land. Detroit had suddenly been covered with fog, and we had only 1100 feet visibility. We made two landing attempts at Detroit before we were redirected to Toledo. The National Weather Service expected five hours of the dense fog, but after about 30 minutes in Toledo the fog had appeared to lift enough for flights to get in and out of Detroit.

“Let’s just see how lucky we can get,” the pilot said.

It took another hour for the airline to arrange to get us additional fuel and to get all the proper clearances to leave.

So, after a 90-minute wait sitting on the plane, Jessica and Brian’s flight returned to the air and landed in Detroit at 11:05 p.m.

The pilot’s response?

“We barely made it,” he told the flight attendant.

Might want to keep those thoughts behind the sealed cockpit door next time. Now, to see about a new flight (the Dec. 26 flight to Scranton was cancelled). We also have to find a bed in a state that we’d rather not be in right now.

Time to go back to Pennsylvania. Jessica and Brian left St. Marys at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The flight was supposed to leave Port Columbus/CMH at 7:10 p.m. for Detroit. Jessica and Brian arrived at the airport and were checked in by 5 p.m.

The flight schedule showed a delay, with the flight now scheduled to leave at 7:59 p.m. Jessica and Brian sought out Brian’s parents for one more meal and a few more memories of the trip. Finally, at about 7:30 they said their goodbyes and went through the security checkpoint.

They made the announcement at 7:45 p.m. The flight to Detroit/DTW would leave at 8:54 p.m. Jessica hurried to get to the front of the line, and she was able to get us bumped to another DTW-bound flight. (The departure of that flight was originally scheduled for 5 p.m.) The plane pulled away from the gate at 8:25. We landed in Toledo 70 minutes later.