well frankly I've lost count. So this is the story of the Abilene Airport and my trip a couple of weekends ago to Memphis. I hadn't been to Memphis in over a year and my good friend from Austin or Atlanta (yeah she has moved as much as I have) just moved to Ole Miss to take a crack at immulating John Grisham in other words she is going back to school to be a lawyer. Now having left the accounting world to go back to school I know some of the exciting emotions and the scared emotions and well all the other emotions. Anyway my other good friend from Memphis I hadn't seen since her mad dash trip to San Antonio that provoked my exuberant delay of a project for my own mad dash to S.A. to watch the Memphis Tigers get slaughtered well maybe that is strong but....Anyway the point is I'm going to Memphis to see my friends. Well I had this ticket from American Airlines from a trip that was supposed to have been a fun weekend in Chicago but ended up being a miserable existence in bed with a higher than 105 fever. So I was just going to fly from DFW on Friday to Little Rock and drive to Memphis and come back on Monday no problem. Well then I found out that we didn't get Labor Day off from class. I thought that Harding was the only unfeeling school to snatch Labor Day out of students grasp of a free day of school when of course its needed to deal with the adjustment of starting back school but anyway I wanted as much time as possible in Memphis so therefore after exploring internet flight options on the AA website I got the bright idea of flying out of Abilene at 5:30 AM. I was going to have to get up at 4 anyway to drive to DFW and this would just prevent me from falling asleep at the wheel.
Now there were many clues that should have clued me into the very awful idea this was. Here are just a few of those clues:
1). There is only one small sign off of the loop (of which by the way most of the time I can drive all the way around the loop and only see two or three other cars) for the airport.
2.) The airport is on the news all the time for improvements where the newscasters say the deceiving words of Abilene International Airport and follow that in the same breath with Abilene Regional Airport.
3.) The runway is about as long as my drive way.
4.) My roomate from California flew here to interview for the program and asked where the taxis were; all airports have taxis right?
5.) Whenever I have picked up friends they are usually at least two hours late AND the short and long term parking is on the curb of the drop off drive. Most airports send cops after you if you park here.
6.) The overflow parking is on a dirt parking lot.
7.) When you drive by on the loop you look over and see the storage lot for about 20 AA propellor planes. I guess each morning they just rotate which plane you fly in. Scary I know.
8.) AA is the ONLY airline that flies out of here. If there ain't southwest I should have know it was a bad idea
9.) It has rained here all summer and all this week and rain means props can't fly.
10.) and Finally the flight was at 5:30 AM that should have been enough to clue me in to THIS IS A VERY VERY BAD NO GOOD IDEA.
but....
well I booked it and yep baaaad idea. So I actually get up get to the airport by the designated 4:30 (I've missed a flight at a small airport before because the ticket checker in dude is the baggage loader dude and the people loader dude and so an hour before is essential) Well I get there and they tell me my flight has been delayed until guess what time 8:45!!!! Why not because of weather not because of mechanics I mean after all there is a whole lot of planes to choose from, but because the pilots need to sleep. WHATT???? I needed to sleep too. I guess I don't want them falling asleep flying me but there is two of them and its a 40 minutes flight why can't they sleep in DFW?
Well I settle down in one of the 10 chairs in the so called unairconditioned mosquito infested waiting room and try to remain happy but well lets just say after a disaster in DFW because I missed my connection and flights were full because of Labor Day weekend I finally got to Memphis and had a great weekend.
However, I will have to be paid exorbant amounts of money to fly out of this hole in the wall airport again!!! (Cobbie if you read this it is equivalent to the trailer in MS airport experience!!)
