dear st. louis, i am sure that you are probably a great city. your airport, however, sucks. a 4 hour layover included a whole bunch of nothing followed by boredom. minimal shopping and dining was also included. you should seriously step your game up. suggestion: a pedicure would have been nice. sincerely, travelingal
today i had the privilege of flying Cape Air. to those of you who have been to martha's vineyard before (via air)- this story may be a bit familiar. at the ticket counter i had to tell the agent how much i weigh so that the plane could be balanced. then while at the gate we simply filed out the door to board the cessna 12 seater plane. i was then instructed that i could not take my carry-on bag aboard, so instead i had to stow it in the wing of the plane. next i crawled through the tiny entrance door and up the mini aisle (about the size of an aisle of a minivan) to the seat directly behind the pilot. he then turned around and shouted to the passengers "thanks for flying cape air. turn your cell phones off now and buckle up, we'll be leavin in a minute" while the baggage handlers shoved our checked luggage into the nose of the plane. we were then notified that the emergency exits are the door we just entered through and the tiny window next to the pilot. "i know what window i'm jumping out of!" i thought to myself. my knees are now firmly in the back of the pilot's seat and i am overlooking all of the flight instruments. i am, for all intensive purposes, IN the cockpit. luckily i had ear plugs (which made every other passenger insanely jealous of me) which were quite handy indeed. took off during the sunset which was very pretty. flew at only about 5,000 feet and arrived in cape girardeau, mo 45 minutes later. by far the smallest airport i've ever seen. apparently they are having an air show (which is a big deal around here) this weekend. i'm a bit worried since my flight out of here is at 2pm on saturday and it seems like all 35,000 inhabitants of this city will be at that air show. will be interesting.