SLC Punk'd

Dave's back, babies!

I'm in Salt Lake City this morning, although I hadn't planned on it (this is, has been, and will always be the case when I am in SLC. The only times I find myself in this town are 1) to catch a connecting flight, because there was no other option for my air travel; 2) to drive up to the Wasatch and get some skiing in sweet sweet Utah Powder; or 3) because I've decided that you know what, I don't feel like having fun today. I don't have any particular axe to grind with Salt Lake City; it's just that this town was not designed with fun in mind.

To wit:

1) SLC is centrally located in the middle western United States. This makes it an excellent location for a Delta hub. Unfortunately, "centrally located" does not improve a town's fun rating. SLC relatively close mountains with incredible skiing, desert canyons with incredible vistas, and Las Vegas with incredible immorality. These are all fun. SLC is strategically located in the empty region between them.

2) SLC was founded by mormons. These people have historically been anti-fun, especially in the underwear department. They also rank very low on the fun scale when it comes to...

3) Beer. If there's one thing SLC hates, it's beer with a decent alcohol content. This means that the biggest side effect of drinking in SLC is having to pee a lot. I like to pee as much as the next guy, but there are better reasons to drink. For example, pointless vandalism.

4) The Great Salt Lake. SLC's big attraction is a chunk of water so salty that almost nothing can live in it. The salt content is so high that you can float in it easily. "Easy Floating" does not help SLC's fun rating. Especially if you can't drink a decent beer while you're floating.).

So why am I in Salt Lake City? A misfunctioning altimeter, that's why. Mr. Altimeter decided on the Boston tarmac that he wasn't going to work properly. So the pilot taxied the plane back to the gate to fix him. Apparently, rolling around at 1 mile an hour is the most fuel-intensive activity a jet can do, because after returning to the gate the plane needed to re-balance its fuel tanks for take-off due to all the fuel it had burned sitting on the tarmac. Apparently, moving fuel from one part of the fuel tanks to another part of the fuel tanks WITHIN THE SAME PLANE requires written approval from the control tower.

Now, the Boston-Logan control tower HATES when flights get delayed. They absolutely despise it. So when a plane does get delayed like ours, the control tower punishes them by taking as long as possible to approve their fuel re-balancing. The control tower is tough but fair.

The net effect on Dave was keeping me crammed in my tiny little plane seat for over two hours while this comedy of errors was taking place. Time being linear, it also meant that my flight didn't get into Salt Lake City until after 11pm (local time), long after the last plane had left for Salem for the night.

So I got stuck in SLC. I had not planned on it.

The nice people at Delta booked me on the next day's (i.e., today's) flight, and put me up in the airport radisson for the night. And they gave me $14 in food vouchers, which at airport/hotel food vendors is almost enough to buy half a sandwich. So that's nice of them.

What does this mean for you, good readers? It means that the road trip ("Vision Quest II: Electric Boogaloo") has been delayed by a little over half a day. Assuming no further altimeter hijinx today, I'll be back in the saddle this afternoon. You can look forward to exciting upcoming posts like "Dave gets the oil changed in his car" and "Dave finds out just how bad his car smells after baking in the sun for two weeks with a dirty sleeping bag inside." I might even regale you with tales of my July 4th break -- tales of lobsters, fireworks, sheep, fire trucks, and laundry. It's every bit as exciting as it sounds.

-Dave-