First Leg Completed

Whew! Made it to our nation’s capital. It’s a long haul from Maui. I do have a couple of impressions to pass along.

First, I had two hours between flights at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Maybe it’s the people passing through that vast facility, or maybe it’s just Texas, but I must say I saw quite a number of women who looked like college coeds from the back (long, long blond hair and short skirts), and grandmothers from the front (better not go there).

Then there was the portly businessman who was sitting in one of the rows of chairs reading the morning newspaper. Whenever he finished a section, he would casually toss it over his shoulder, neither knowing nor caring if there was anyone sitting on one of the chairs behind him. (There wasn’t, which was disappointing. I would have been interested in the reaction.)

And finally, there was the low, slow, bumpy descent into Washington’s Reagan Airport*, our plane groping its way down through think clouds and rain. The first time terra firma came into view was four or five seconds before I saw the end of the runway. It occurred to me at the moment of touchdown that an experience like that is just one more reason to take the train.

Tomorrow will be the first of three days of meetings of the NARP board of directors. (That’s the National Association of Railroad Passengers, as I have mentioned in earlir posts.) There is internet access here at the hotel, so I will pass along anything even mildly interesting.