OK, my flight out of Buffalo on Thursday night was on the dreaded Northwest, flight 677 to Minneapolis-St. Paul, 6:41 PM departure. Except that we sat at the gate for 2 and a half hours while a couple mechanics worked on some sort of "valve problem". This was the day before the mechanic strike was due to start, so who knows, maybe they were "sending a message" of sorts.
Eventually we got off the ground and made it to MSP no problem, except that, oh yeah, we all missed our connecting flights out. So instead it was the airport steeplechase to get the shuttle to the hotel for the night. (I was part of a slighty impatient lot that marched up an out-of-service escalator, under the theory that things in airports are always broken and you simply deal with it; whereas in this case they had shut it down on purpose because someone had taken a nasty spill a bit earlier, and so we got a bit of a talking-to from some generic medical-security-baggage-handler guy... as we muscled on past him.)
Anyway, the shuttle, hotel, rebooked flights- it was as good customer service as you can expect under the circumstances. And boy, did I ever choose a good trip to not have any checked luggage!
My hotel was the Radisson Riverfront St. Paul, about 15 minutes by shuttle from the airport. It was a very swanky room up on the 21st floor, complete with one of those fancy dial-a-setting mattress beds.
Unfortunately, there was no setting on the bed for "I'm freakin' starving here!" The hotel dude at the desk had said that there was exactly one place still open and serving food at this late hour (um, 11:45 PM... "late"), so I dumped my bags and turned right around to go looking. Hunger trumping fatigue, but just barely.
Just by chance I met up in the lobby with another waylaid traveler who I had gotten to know during our quality time together in the shuttle line. Sadly, I've forgotten his name (I meant to swap cards with him the next morning but he got an earler shuttle out than I did). Together we hiked through stately, deserted, mildly scary downtown St. Paul and found ourselves at a trendy little place called Fihma's. Not so trendy as to have a full kitchen going at this hour, but appetizers were still available. So I had a Stella Artois and margherita pizza, while my new friend told be all about the Bay Area regional distribution and promotion of Heineken beer, plus war stories from his time at Snapple during the Quaker regime. Nice guy. He ended up comping my meal. Double nice. I wish him the best on his new job (this was an interview trip he was returning from!)
Back home to the stately dial-a-bed, and a ventilation system that moaned like a banshee caught in a wood chipper. Five hours later, it was up to greet the sun, and to get ass in gear to find an airport shuttle.
I missed the "6:30" shuttle, which left at 6:25 (a little too punctual there, mate!), so after all that I suddenly had a half hour to kill until the next shuttle came. So I took these pictures of the hotel and its surrounding area. Nostaligia for you homesick Minnesotans like my friend Ruth:
The lobby of the hotel had some cool "Peanuts" sculptures that had come out of a recent civic promotion (Charles Schultz was a good and famous Minnesotan, see):
Right next to Charlie Brown was the lobby coffee shop, where I had First Breakfast (because you never know how your day is going to go...): coffee, double-chocolate muffin, something outrageous like $6. C'est la vie.
Caught the 7:00 shuttle to the airport, which was still super early for catching a 9:30 flight out. Back in the concourse I had Second Breakfast, mostly because I had a $13 meal voucher from Northwest that I was determined to burn. I got a bunch of pastry type things at this place:
But, you know, I'm not so hobbity after all, and not very well versed in Second Breakfasts, to say nothing of Elevensies. So most of what I got here, I couldn't eat, and it got packed away as a token gift for my soon-to-be gracious hosts, Ruth and Chad.
The make-up Northwest leg to Colorado Springs got out more or less on time and it was a smooth flight. 12 hours later than expected, I hit the ground in COS and found Ruth right away. A quick look to the mountains - yep, Pikes Peak is still there all right.
And this is where I'll pick up the story, next post.
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