All,
This column is brought to you by the Holiday Inn in Dubuque, Iowa.
The weather today in the Hawkeye state is cloudy with a chance of rain. On the menu for this evening is probably some hotel food but we’ll have to wait and see.
I flew into Iowa yesterday. I began my journey in Detroit, had a layover in Chicago (where my gate changed 4 times in under 30 minutes) and finally landing in Cedar Rapids, where my girlfriend picked me up for the hour drive to Dubuque.
I’m here to visit my girlfriend while she has an internship for an insurance brokerage company. They put her up in a hotel downtown and it has everything I need to get work done, a desk, coffee and WIFI. I’ll be staying with her until next Wednesday.
I haven’t seen her in over a month and I’m glad I have the opportunity to continue my remote work from the hotel room.
My plane left Detroit at 4:10 p.m. and landed in Chicago at 4:50 p.m. (3:50 p.m. CST) and thus began my three-hour layover. I have never been to Chicago but if it’s anything like O’Hare, it must be busy.
I wasn’t a fan of O’Hare. The airport was crowded and loud and at times didn’t make a lot of sense to me since my gate changed four times, only for me to finish my adventure at the gate I started at. But I will admit, it gave me the opportunity to do something I haven’t done since the beginning of COVID… talk to random people!
I always find that the most interesting people in the world are at an airport. Where are they going? Where are they coming from? What for? Who are they with? Did you check out the hotdog stand over there? The questions are nearly endless!
Of course, I didn’t start with these questions. It started with a greasy sausage pizza I got before my flight.
I was running around for 40 minutes going from gate to gate because it kept changing (as mentioned numerous times above). And when I finally got to the right gate, I saw there was a little personal pizza stand and I knew I earned a pie.
I brought the pizza back to the gate and sat down in the middle of three couples all sitting there silently.
Upon opening the box I realized I didn’t have any way to eat the pizza without making a huge mess so I made a face to man across from me, pointed to the pizza and said, “This may have been a mistake.”
The man laughed and his wife let out a little chuckle as well.
“I should’ve suspected this thing to be my doom!” I joked.
“Yeah, that looks pretty greasy.” The man said.
“And besides, who gets a sausage pizza right before going on an airplane?” his wife started to joke.
During our discussion, I learned their names, John and Marie. They live just north of LA, but they lived in Florida for many years before that and they were originally from Atlanta. They were headed to Jacksonville for a few days to visit their son and grandchildren, they have two. We talked about Atlanta sports, and Marie started saying she was a fan of the “sorry ass Falcons” (Atlanta’s own crappy football team).
I proudly declared myself a Detroit Lions fan and they literally started pointing and laughing at me, I couldn’t help myself but laugh with them.
John said he was looking to move out of California before he retires, and I began my pitch for Michigan
“We’ve got water everywhere,” I said, “You fall down, it’s probably into a body of water.”
Suddenly the couple next to them started laughing too. I quickly brought them into the conversation. They were from Cedar Rapids and heading home before driving to South Dakota for a college reunion.
Before long, the third couple joined in. The woman said that she would like Michigan because she misses the snow. We learned that she was from Anchorage, Alaska originally but lives in Louisiana. I lightheartedly said “Seems like a bit of an overcorrection,” and we all started to laugh.
She just got back from Florida visiting her daughter.
The conversation lasted a good 30 minutes and soon enough we had to board the plane and say exchange goodbyes.
I haven’t been able to do that since before COVID. I sat down with a sausage pizza and started a conversation with a bunch of total strangers, and it was absolutely incredible.
The funny thing about the pizza, I don’t remember how it tasted.
Jacob