Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Friday, November 20, 2015

I'm on a layover in Detroit -- Act Two

We leave here in about an hour. This morning I got up at 5:10 am Chicago time, got ready and packed for the transit system, not the airport. Then I had some oatmeal and a soda for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. After I checked out, I just had to go across the street to the bus stop. The desk clerk had suggested taking the Blue Line downtown and transferring to the Orange Line from there; he said the buses could be unreliable. But that would take longer, and there's more traffic on the trains at that time of the morning as people head downtown on the Blue Line, so I decided to take the bus, which was just coming up once I crossed the street, so there was no waiting. The bus was lightly occupied, and I took it to the Ashland Orange station, got aboard the train with just about three stops left before the airport, so that worked well--it wasn't very busy. I had put laptop and CPAP bag into my bigger bag, expanding the case by unzipping the expansion. That way, I only had the rolling bag and my purse to deal with on the transit system.

One of my librarian colleagues had described the train to Midway as 'dropping you off at an.lot'. That's sort of true. It's a long walk from the station to the actual airport, and only once you get to the airport do they have, say, wheelchair services for people who can't walk long distances. I didn't need that, but I did park myself in that area because there were some chairs, and repacked my luggage for going through security, so the purse is in my rolling bag empty, the CPAP bag is back as it should be, and essentials such as wallet are in my laptop bag. This time I did a paper boarding pass, although I didn't apparently pick up the one for the connecting flight, but got it later from the gate in Midway so I could get on the Detroit to Lexington plane.

Security was very tight at Midway and I got patted down a bit more than in Lexington because I had a heavy sweater that obscured the scan, and a necklace that showed up on it. She also swabbed my hands with something before letting me go. I got my shoes back on and everything back together--liquids, CPAP, laptop, bags. Then I ditched the sweater into the rolling bag because I was sweltering. So now I'm chatting with a guy at the airport, waiting to board.

I'll check in later.

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