I am out at The Ranch again this week for Round 2 of the Work Remote Experiment. I am fortunate in that this time out, The Ravishing Mrs. TB was able to come out with me.
As we both traveled out this weekend, I realized how less and less excited I am to be traveling in general.
Oh, not because of the end result. I am happy to be here - I am always happy to be here, even when (as it always is in September) the land is brown and dry, waiting another month or so for the rains to start.
It is what travel has become.
Upon arrival at your chosen airport of departure, you go to the automated kiosk to check in - which works for me, of course, as I tend to shun human contact. You enter the flight information, update the baggage information, and then receive the tickets as well as the tags for your baggage - which you now have to attach yourself instead of airline personnel doing it (and woe betide you if your ends are not aligned). You take your baggage up to the counter, present your identification, and turn your bags over.
Next, off to the security line. You wait in line, move to the ID check, re-submit your identification for scanning, pull down your mask and show them your face, then go to the scanner. Bags, shoes, and jackets/belts go into one container with your phone, your computer in another. Push your bags down the line until the belt picks them up.
Wait for the security scan: Step in, arms raised, wait three seconds while the unit makes its 270 degree scan. Step out, wait, maybe go through, maybe get asked to flip your hands over or check your collar (it has happened to me). Recollect your things, re-put on your shoes and belt, re-stuff your computer back into your bag. Move on.
Wait at the gate in the now social distanced wave of the future. We board by tens. Wait for your cohort to be called. Move through line, distanced. Hold out your ticket, respond to perfunctory "Have a nice flight". Social distance down the jetway to the airplane. Get into the seat (no middle aisles now).
All of this, with reminders along the way of "wear your mask", "social distance", "refrain from touching your face", etc.
Go here. Go there. Wear this. Do that. Take this out. Put this in.
Almost at every point in the process now, you are being told what to do. The excitement of air travel - of going somewhere exciting - has been replaced by the banality of a managed process at every point. It now has all the joy of standing in line to get your driver's license.
It is convenient, which is the only thing to recommend it at this point. But is certainly feels nothing like an adventure.
Up here in Alaska, travel by air is almost the only way to leave the state. Land travel is possible, but you need to schedule a week of driving in each direction to visit the Lower 48. Most working folks don't want to use 3 weeks of vacation to spend a few days with family. And then, of course, there's Hawaii ... sigh.
ReplyDeleteAh, true enough Reverend. I forget it is so far - but it a solid two days of non-stop driving for us to get here.
DeleteEven for that, it might be worth it. But only maybe.
Good grief, talk about an industrialized assembly line. It doesn't seem like we're people any more, just cattle. Not that I have any interest in traveling any more, but that really deflates any potential desire to do so.
ReplyDeleteWelp... congrats on getting through all that without murdering anyone, TB!
ReplyDeleteOf course the answer to this is obvious, allow me to solve your dilemma: You need to go home - and stay there! :)
Best of luck with that, too!
Plus one!
DeleteDuly noted Glen and Linda. We are working on it.
DeleteFortunately I have never had to travel for work and my trips by airplane although not rare are infrequent enough that I tend to forget the pain of it until I am entering into the airport again. Growing up on a farm, flying these days is more like a day spent herding cattle into increasingly more narrow chutes so that we can get all the vaccinations into their hides. If the vaccine arrives and we can get dosed at an airport, the minute differences would be very frightening indeed.
ReplyDeleteEd, I know that many have said for years that Southwest is the equivalent of Cattle Car Travel. I accept that as the price of reasonable air travel. That said, the whole experience has truly become an adventure in being treated like a unit to be processed.
DeleteI suspect the differences would be very minute indeed.
Hopefully home is well away from all the fires on the coast.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you and keep you all safe.
Thank you Linda! They are away from the fires but not the smoke (see tomorrow's post).
DeleteI'm 'in-between' here..... I have never felt excited about travelling by air, not liking the 'crammed all together in a sardine tin' way of packing people on to planes. Therefore this Covid way of travelling should be much more agreeable to me. But then there is the mask to wear, which I don't like. And then there is social distancing, which I do like. So, on balance, no, I am not going to get on an aeroplane anytime soon!
ReplyDeleteAnd so the wheels of one's life turns, ........
The Plague has helped nothing, certainly. Having to remember to haul a mask along, let alone remember to put it on, gets to be a chore.
DeleteI do not know that I was ever really excited about air travel - maybe once upon a time, when it was a special treat. Now, I try and count the places I do not want to go rather than the ones I want to visit.
I traveled for 18 years and averaged 48 flights a year. But I haven't been on an plane except once since 2008 when I retired. Watching the mayhem cause by people on flights I am stuck by how different it has become in the last 12 years. With over 800 flights I never once witnessed nor saw any altercation. Worst flight was from Seattle to Dallas and an extremely obese woman sat down next to me, flipped up the arm rest and oozed onto my thigh. Ugh to the extreme. I stood in back reading the entire flight and when sitting back down for landing she thanked me for giving her enough space.
ReplyDeleteSqueeky's Mom - Mayhem is probably a fine word. I have never yet been on a flight where such has occurred, but I think it will only continue to be a problem.
DeleteIt has become different - and much less pleasant. I think at this point if I was not flying home so much I would not be flying at all, except overseas (and those flights are very different).
Thanks for stopping by!