Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Apr 22, 2004

St. Louis MO: 14th April 2004: Travelling

Filed in BX Convention 2004

I was packing until the last minute, and still forgot my hairbrush and penguin. ;-)

Don gave me a ride on the back of Max to the airport. Managed to dump gas on my luggage while filling up, but no harm done. I told him he didn’t need to see me off to the plane, I could manage. It wasn’t far, and my foot is getting better all the time.

The first thing I did was wander up a little ways and snarf the historical marker there! Right on the site of the airport there used to be a ranch, and the honeybee was introduced to California there. I had to chuckle: laden with a heavy bag, I was still mucking with my camera and GPS unit (which wouldn’t latch onto any satellites, so I never did get the reading).

Looking like the tourist I was, I checked in and went through security - there wasn’t much - and up to the United gates. My plane was on time, boarding was very smooth and well-organised, and before much longer I was on the way to Denver.

I love flying. I don’t do it often, so the novelty never wears off. When you book online you can select your seat, and I chose window seats on each of my four flights. My favourite part is the liftoff, of course, when you have that eyeball-flattening acceleration and see the world drift away from underneath you. We quickly left Silicon Valley behind and crossed the Sierra Nevada…I was listening to the air traffic control channel and heard them request a less bumpy altitude before they announced it over the tannoy.

I didn’t read on the plane, I bought an airline lunch, catered by TGI Fridays - I guess they don’t feed you anymore, but the lunch was better than airline and airport food. Beside that, I just looked at stuff - mountains and desert and the like. I love the desert. Vast tracts of empty, unoccupied-by-human land. A wildness that I crave and don’t find where I live, but am grateful for when I reach it.

Salt Lake City passed, and then we were on the descent to Denver, Colorado, where I would switch planes. We crossed right over the Rocky Mountains, my first glimpse of that snow-covered range. I was surprised to find that Denver wasn’t in the mountains, but was in the plains off to the east - very flat plains, it seemed, and agricultural rather than wild. I’ve heard that the prairie is disappearing, and it does seem that way, as we encroach on the wild land.

In Denver, the first thing I wanted was a bathroom. There, I saw my first tornado shelter sign. Much relieved, I went and dug out a postcard from a gift shop. Then, looking for my gate, I encountered yet another historical marker, completely unexpected this time. Actually, I don’t recall right now the theme, other than that it commemorates some kind of plane, and was put up by the family who invented it, or something like that. This is why I take pictures of the plaques for future reading and why I set up Landmark Wisdom - to record those critters for future generations who are not flying through Denver ;-)

It was at this point that I realised that I had left Penguin behind, and was disappointed.

Flight number two was fun and smooth; I was very impressed with United. Topographically speaking it wasn’t as interesting; we flew right over Kansas and it’s hundreds of miles of patchwork quilt - all the same, laid out in squares. But that flight was only two hours, and we got there a bit early. It passed quickly.

You fly in right over downtown St. Louis, so with a big grin I got to see the skyscrapers and caught my first glimpse of the Arch. It was magnificent and I got happy butterflies in my tummy seeing it. Sort of a magic moment, though I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve wanted to see the Arch for quite a long time now. I laughed at myself because I was thinking “if I could just identify them, I’d now have about 40 snarfs just on this fly-by” ;-)

Unfortunately for the sanity of my foot, which by now had had enough already, the United gate was almost as far from the exit as you can get, and there were no nice conveyor belts like at Denver and San Jose. However, it was as easy as can be to get a ride to the motel - I was staying the first two nights at Days Inn. It tickled me to see exactly where the Holiday Inn was - right next door!

I checked in, hobbled up a flight of stairs to an adequate but not particularly nice room, and chilled. I decided not to go out for food tonight, but to have a vending machine dinner. I left a message for Don that I was there and he could call me, and asked him to relay information to Tzurriz about the room etc. Then I settled in to read and watch local news, which is always cool - it’s nice to see that the news is the same no matter where you go. ;-)

I had an unexpected call though - Sonora showed up! It was lovely to see a friendly face. She came bearing goodies in a big shopping bag, and that was exciting. There was all sorts of neat stuff - a couple of books, some tea bags, bookmarks and literature, pretty little charms, maps…it really meant a lot to see someone I “knew” that first night when I had expected
to be alone.

After that, bed seemed really alluring, and I was soon fast asleep, only to be awakened for a nice chat with my husband at three in the morning.

Yeah, we’re weird. ;-)