Back north again and experiencing the reset that is a second Spring. One year we managed Spring in Grove City, Florida, followed by Southern Nevada, followed by Kihei, Hawaii, followed by Park City, Utah. That year of the four Springs is now established as something to work towards going forward. It was sort of accidental to begin with. But what a wonderful accident. To be clear, though, the season of emergence in Park City is a bit of a flop. It always has been and it always will be. Winter tends to run late and slam into Summer without allowing much in the way of Spring and if Spring does occur it is usually a time of mud and unsightly stuff revealed from beneath dirty snow drifts that requires a few weekends of clean-up. Everything from dog crap to entire cars which had fallen into unuse before the coming of the snows. Mainly just litter: soppy pieces of cardboard and grocery store plastic bags.
This year was especially interesting. Because of the rather incredible volume of snow involved, one unseasonal thunderstorm or any string of really hot days before the middle of April could have been cataclysmic, resulting in many a sodden basement. But this year the melt came very slow and smooth and even. By the first of May our yard was largely clear. There were, and continue to be some major issues along streams further down the line, but it could have been so much worse. Compensation is provided to Parkites for the lack of Spring, this year and every year, in the form of easy access to the proximal wonderlands of southern Utah in particular and the southwest and southern California in general. It is the season of desert camping and hiking, and, of course, Disneyland and so forth, for those of that persuasion.
Just before heading out from Southern Nevada this time around we managed to fit in the third season of the Boulder Garden Tour put on by the Boulder Garden Club. I had never heard of either of these things before but my wife spotted an article in the local paper. The event was fun and done well. The gardens ranged from a few that were just small aggregates of repurposed horse-watering toughs through to one large and extremely well-done and professionally-tended estate garden that wasn’t on the official agenda. The tour also covered gardens in all areas of the town. There appeared to be a focus on inclusiveness and the economic diversity of the community which was nice. They seemed to be saying, “Gardening is for everyone. Why don’t you give it a try?” The transition away from heavy use of water to an emphasis of desert and dry-land species was displayed in several. A couple hundred photos from the tour are included in my photographer galleries in the southern nevada galleries. My roses were rather spectacular in this unusually wet year, if I do say so myself.
Our leaving Nevada was interesting as well. It was my first time flying on a new-to-me airline. They have been in my orbit for a long time because around eight to fifteen years ago I spent a large amount of time in and around Playa del Carmen, Mexico and much of that time involved studying Spanish at a local school there. About half of the class often consisted of university-age Norwegian women associated with a Norwegian University annex located there at the time. They occasionally spent weekends traveling to other destinations in Latin America. They always traveled on this same budget carrier flying through Fort Lauderdale on their way to Guatemala or wherever. They spoke highly of the airline especially it’s fare structure. “All we need is a bikini, a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, flipflops, and sun glasses. What do we care about baggage?” Although often tempted, I never did get on board with the concept, so to speak.
Two things struck me about my experience flying from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.
It is usually a simple one to one-and-a-half-hour direct flight. When we arrived at our gate we heard cancellations announced for flights to California cities: Santa Ana, San Diego and Oakland. We waited for a long time. It seemed like around four hours but it might have been less. We had been told to get in line and then we were told to stay in line for the last two hours. By the end people were openly hostile with the gate attendants and a bilingual spokesperson had been hastened to the gate to calm the masses. The problem was that our pilot was absent, on a wind hold in Santa Ana or so they said. The tension increased.
The gate attendant often took to the microphone to make one or another of two alternating announcements. One, that if our luggage was even a centimeter over the allotted size as measured by a set of metal boxes at the gate, we would have to jump through a series of hoops involving a kiosk somewhere and if we did not accomplish this promptly, we would likely miss the flight. And two, that our pilot had gone missing and the flight would either be something like three hours late or not happen at all. So, the first thing that struck me was that this airline expected so much of its customers and so little of itself.
The tension continued to grow. And then the televisions at the gate showed the flight had been cancelled. The gate attendants were watching the TV’s and when it happened they jumped up and down. They didn’t actually clap or cheer or extend high-fives to one another. But it was as if their team had made a three-pointer in the last seconds of a NCAA tournament game and they had to be somewhat subdued in the expression of their exuberance. We were then told that the flight had been cancelled and we were to walk back past security, pick up our bags, and go wait in another line to either get our tickets refunded or to find another flight with the airline on the following day. That other line was a two hour wait. That was the second thing that struck me. This airline and/or at a minimum its employees, perhaps over days and weeks of similar confrontations, had developed a sense of contempt for their customers. They were jumping up and down when the flight was cancelled. Their remedy was simply adding insult to injury with an additional two hour wait.
We were in perhaps the best situation of all of the people waiting in the refund line. We were traveling from home city to home city. One elderly woman sat beside the line and quietly sobbed. Others told stories of their lengthy trips consisting of one cancelled or missed flight after another. Others checked on rental car rates from Las Vegas to Sacramento or other disparate places. We simply booked flights on another airline, Southwest, for the following afternoon and arranged a cheap one day car rental in Las Vegas. We waited in line the mandatory couple of hours, grabbed our refund, picked up the rental car, drove back to Boulder City, worked from there the following day, and then drove back to the airport late that afternoon. The Southwest flight went without issues. Our daughter picked us up at the airport. All ended well. But it would be nice to get the seven hours and the extra couple of hundred dollars spent associated with the fiasco back again. Ironically it is a seven hour drive from our place in Southern Nevada to Park City.
Also, oddly enough, I found the whole thing a tad funny. It had an element of dark comedy. The concept of an airline that doesn’t fly you anywhere but instead asks that you stand around for hours in multiple lines while repeatedly warning you about the size of your luggage was, and I suppose, continues to be, absurd. And so absurd that it is funny. Beckett, Kafka, and Camus would have found themselves right at home in the refund line. Not to mention the cast of Monte Python. Maybe it was just an unfortunate one time incident. Maybe not. I think some of my good humor derived from having been stranded in Europe more than once by French strikes over issues that I have long forgotten. Flashbacks to an exciting time. The beauty of Europe in this regard is that they do have some governmentally-prescribed protections built into the system and that if you do get screwed over by the airlines you can usually grab a highspeed train, and vice versa. And, as I said, we were in perhaps the best situation of all of the people waiting in the refund line.
One thing that isn’t funny is that if this is the condition of travel in America in 2023, it doesn’t bode well for any of the airlines or travel in general in 2024 and going forward. I could feel the sense of regret about having decided to travel among my fellow non-passengers waiting in the refund line. It palpably hung in the air like a damp bad smell. The often-expressed sense of surprise that post-pandemic Americans will travel regardless of, well, anything could soon be replaced by a bewildered wonderment as to what has happened to all of the travelers.
Oh, and the airline was not Frontier. I’ve flown them dozens of times over decades. Often to and from Latin America or back and forth from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas or Denver or places in California. To the best of my recollection I’ve never had a problem other than an inconsequential delay here and there.