Louisiana Ho

3/25

Right now I'm waiting in Houston Bush airport for my connecting flight to lovely Lake Charles, LA, home of factories and casinos.  Oops already said that last time.  I had the distinction of being able to travel through O'Hare this morning.  I don't like the place.  It takes too long to get to from anywhere, including the train, its too big, too confusing, and too delayed.  My flight actually left mostly on time though.  Coming back through O'Hare is worse because until you've done it half a dozen times, you have no idea where to go when all the signs pointing to CTA (the El) that you've been following suddenly lead you to a place where they all point to YOU, and yet there's neither train nor sign.  Once you figure out that the train is underground, and to keep going down like three more escalators until you find it, you're fine.  Until then, you feel like Alice in Wonderland.  A very merry unbirthday.  

I had another one of those bejeweled O'Hare moments when I got there and tried finding Terminal 2 from the El.  End of a hallway, two big signs.  One says Terminals 1,2 this way, 3,4,5 that way.  Okayyyyyyy start walking wait-what-did-the-other-sign-say?  List of airlines, Continental under Terminal 2, pointing the other way.  OKAY, which is it?  The digital sign with flight info also points that way, so sure, this one's gotta be right and the other decal slapped on the wall is wrong.  Right?  Well, ten feet into heading the other direction is a big double door, perpendicular to my current path(s) conspicuously painted the color of my terminal sign.  But no markings.  BUT, through them at the end of the hallway I see Terminal 2 and an arrow.  Okay, stupid, but I found it.  End of the hallway?  "Walkway Closed, Terminal 2 This Way" and an arrow.  Pointing to A WALL.  A WALL.  A wall???  Okay, backup ten feet, see another perpendicular corridor parallel to my original direction(s), in the same direction as I (almost) started heading before looking back to the sign a second time (and running ten feet in the wrong direction on a moving sidewalk).  Down this new corridor of course is a sign saying Terminal 2.  By this time I'm walking past the workout room in the Hilton.  No seriously.  So after obviously walking the length the original moving sidewalk would have covered, that I was so looking forward to riding, I found, well, at least the beginning of my quarter-mile journey in the right direction.  

At Midway, which is an equal drive from downtown as O'Hare, or close enough, I can get there in 35 minutes instead of 1:15 from downtown, and I can follow the BRIGHT ORANGE STRIPE on the ground from train to airport, at which point I can get to any given terminal within 15 minutes including security.  And usually fly cheaper, on Southwest.  But O'Hare has a better food court....