Airplane, meet truck. Truck, fall over and play dead. That’s the gist of what you’ll see if you watch this video of a South African Airways 737-800 landing in Lusaka, Zambia. A reader of the blog alerted me to this a couple days ago, and I definitely think it’s worth a look. The impact happens just after the one minute mark.

This thread questions who is ultimately at fault, and I’d have to go with the pilot on this one. I mean, the truck may not have been parked in the right place, but it was NOT MOVING. Then again, an Enterprise shuttle van hit my stopped car at the airport earlier this year and they’re saying it’s not their fault, so who knows. (Note to everyone: Don’t rent from Enterprise)

Most interesting to me is this Lusaka Times article that says it was ship ZS-SJD. If they’re right, and they may not be considering they misidentified the 737-800 as a 737-700, then this is the exact plane I flew out of Lusaka back to Johannesburg back in December 2003. Neat.

No, don’t worry Hawaiian and Aloha fans. There’s no need to have a heart attack. go! is not expanding beyond its interisland network with $49 fares to the mainland. Besides, could you imagine that ride in a CRJ? Yikes.

They’re actually just doing a one time trip to the mainland to bring 15,000 ti leaves to University of Hawai’i fans traveling to see their team play in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. The ti leaf is thought to ward off evil spirits in Hawaiian culture. Something tells me that some of these fans would like to ward off go! from flying within the islands any longer.

But if these fans are really smart, they’ll get together and make the world’s largest batch of ‘okolehao. That stuff is moonshine that’s made from the ti leaf, and I have to imagine it’ll get you nice and drunk. Just picture 15,000 drunk Polynesians wandering the French Quarter after a victory on Tuesday night. Heck, I’d fly a CRJ all the way from LA to see that.

As we approach the end of 2007, it’s time to follow up the tradition I started last year with a tribute to those airlines that won’t make it until 2008. Ok, maybe two years doesn’t make a tradition, but I have to start somewhere.

Of course, this doesn’t include every single airline worldwide that went out of business this year. I mean, there would probably be a million of them in Nigeria alone. So, I’ve culled the list down to some of the most notable for one reason or another. If you think I’ve left one out that should be recognized, leave a comment below.

So, here they are in the order which they shut down this year. May their employees all find new jobs with ease.

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Hapag-Lloyd – January 2007

Back in 1972, the recently created shipping conglomerate Hapag-Lloyd decided it was time to start an airline to serve its own purposes. I can see the thinking now . . . “we have a bunch of cruise ships and need to get people to them. I know, let’s start an airline!” That strategy has rarely worked in the past, but over the years, Hapag-Lloyd grew to operate more than 30 aircraft in the charter market until they were swallowed up by the giant TUI. This year, the airline’s name disappeared as TUI began operating all flights under the incredibly un-catchy name TUIfly. While the name may be lame, you’ve undoubtedly seen them buzzing around European airports with their frightening powder blue livery.

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Atlantic Express – January 15, 2007

Poor Atlantic Express. Their mission was very simple . . . fly people from the tiny island of Jersey (off the coast of France) back to London. Their airport of choice? Stansted. Unfortunately for them, you can fly FlyBE to Gatwick, British Midland to Heathrow, VLM to City, and even ThomsonFly to Stansted itself. Needless to say, an airline solely focusing on this route isn’t going to last very long. And they didn’t. Oh sure, there are rumors that they’re going to be revived, but I wouldn’t put much stock in those.

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Slovak Airlines – February 2007

The tale of Slovak Airlines is a bitter one. Back in the mid-1990s, newly independent Slovakia saw the Czechs take the airline they used to share. (Well, they did fly mainly out of Prague.) So what did they do? They got some private investors to start up an airline of their own. As you might have expected, the airline did terribly and in 2005 they turned to Austrian Airlines (not exactly a shining star of profitability itself) to take a controlling stake. Two years later, Austrian was so frustrated with the government’s unwillingness to hold up its end of the bargain and fork over some cash, that they pulled the planes out from under Slovak Airlines and the airline disappeared like that. So there.

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FlyMe – March 2, 2007

I’m not sure that there was really anything remarkable about FlyMe. They were just another airline that got caught up in the low cost carrier frenzy of early 2000s Europe. For some reason, several airlines thought that these generic and annoying names stating that yes, they actually do “fly” would bring them riches. Please don’t confuse them with FlyBE, FlyNordic, TUIfly, Flyglobespan, or Thomsonfly. FlyMe was based in Sweden and brought people from the frozen north down to warmer spots in Europe. Many other airlines had this idea as well (go figure), so the airline never made it very far.

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RegionsAir – March 8, 2007

Though we didn’t see much activity in the first couple of months of 2007 in the US, it picked up in March with the shutdown of RegionsAir. Who? Well, RegionsAir was one of those EAS airlines. They took government money from the Essential Air Service program to fly people to little towns that had very little demand. (The awful EAS program warrants a big long post of its own sometime.) Most recently it was flying as American Connection and Continental Connection from the hubs to places like Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (Motto: Our name is more entertaining than our town.) The EAS world is a hard one to make work these days, and that’s why you’ll see airlines like Big Sky on this list next year. But, RegionsAir didn’t shut down for financial reasons. Nope, they were forcibly shut down by the FAA for training problems. Yikes. They keep saying they’re under new management and they’re going to come back bigger and better than ever. Uh huh. That hasn’t happened, and I wouldn’t put any bets on it.

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SN Brussels and Virgin Express – March 25, 2007

We’ve got a two-fer here, but it’s not a sad ending this time around. SN Brussels and Virgin Express merged to form Brussels Airlines, a new carrier that hopefully will not overserve Belgium as has been tradition for years and years. You may be surprised by the early start date of SN Brussels. Many people think it was created to replace Sabena after it shutdown in 2001. But no, it actually was Delta Air Transport beforehand. When Sabena shutdown, the Belgians transformed DAT into SN Brussels and anointed it as the flag carrier. The death of this airline marks the end of the stylized “S” logo that Sabena used to use as well.

Virgin Express, on the other hand, is a reminder that not everything Richard Branson touches turns to gold. It was never a very successful operation despite its early entrance into the European low cost carrier market. It really ended up being more of a pest to Sabena and SN Brussels than a real threat for world domination. This is probably one of the brighter spots on the list this year, because a merger should help the fortunes of both parties.

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Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB) – April 1, 2007

The story of LAB is a long and proud one. Um, well, until the end. LAB was one of the oldest airlines operating in the world with roots going back to 1925. The only airline predating them in South America was Avianca. Incredibly, the airline survived throughout the years, and even thrived at some points. Unfortunately, the death spiral began in the 1990s and there was very little chance it would recover. Brazilian-disaster VASP took a stake for awhile and proved that it could hardly run itself, let alone a successful partnership. LAB teetered back and forth until this year when the government finally euthanized the airline. There continues to be talk of resurrecting the airline once again, but I wouldn’t expect to see that succeed any time soon.

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Harmony Airways – April 9, 2007

Ah, Harmony. These guys had one of the more colorful histories. Well, it wasn’t the airline itself – it was the CEO. Dr David Ho founded the airline as his personal play toy. He basically decided that he didn’t like the way airlines treated him, so he thought it would be good to start his own. The airline went in and out of routes on a whim, depending how Dr Ho felt that day. But that wasn’t a crime. His only crime was, well, being caught with hookers and blow. I’m not kidding. Just a month or so before the airline shut down, Dr Ho was found driving high on coke with a couple of hookers in his car. Now there’s a role model for you. Shortly after, the airline folded. Related? Probably not directly, but well, you know.

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Peace Air – May 18, 2007

I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Peace Air. I know I had never heard of them before I started looking into this post. But Peace was a long-time airline based in Peace River, Alberta that folded under financial pressure this year. Some say it was just the tough competition from Air Canada and WestJet while others say it was the inability to fly to Edmonton’s City Centre airport for various reasons. Either way, things weren’t adding up and the airline had to shut down. It’s always sad to see these little guys give up the fight.

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O’Connor Airlines – December 14, 2007

Our entry from down under this year is O’Connor Airlines. They just shut down within the last couple of weeks. O’Connor had a laundry list of problems highlighted in their press release announcing their closing. “Ongoing trading losses, declining customer support, flight crew shortages and significant aircraft maintenance issues also contributed to the decision to immediately cease operations.” Yeah, I’d say that the odds were stacked against them here. O’Connor was based in Mount Gambier but the only city they flew in the end that non-Aussies would recognize is Adelaide. I’d say this one appears to have been coming for a long time.

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MAXjet – December 24, 2007

And now, for the one for which you’ve all been waiting. After a couple of weeks of speculation following a suspension of trading of shares, MAXjet shut its doors on Christmas Eve, making Santa find an alternate route for delivering presents at an affordable price in a seat in which he could fit. What happened? A lot. There’s no question that high fuel prices were problematic, especially on gas guzzling routes to LAX and Vegas. We know Washington/Dulles never worked for them despite multiple attempts. And New York? Well, there was crushing competition there.

I continue to believe that there’s something to this model, but it may just not be the right time. With fuel prices where they are, there just isn’t much hope. You’ll hear Eos and Silverjet crowing about how great they’re doing, but that’s just not possible. I can’t imagine they aren’t bleeding. It’s just very difficult to generate the revenue necessary to offset those costs these days when you have so few seats. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some more casualties in this market in the next year, I’m sad to say.

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That’s it for this year’s addition. Let’s hope that we see Alitalia on this list next year. (What, you thought I could get through this without a snarky Alitalia comment?)

I don’t know if I’ll post again this year, so if not, I hope you enjoy the long weekend. I hope you’ve enjoyed my crankiness this year. I look forward to more crankiness next year.

Let’s see, where did I leave off. Ah yes, we had a really nice time in Indy. The weather was clear and sunny for the last couple of days, but as you can see at left, we did have some snow over the weekend as well. (This is a pic of the backyard of my soon-to-be inlaws.)

In order to save a vacation day and save some money, we once again decided to fly back on Christmas Day. This meant we could use a Southwest Rapid Rewards freebie for a mere $5 in taxes per person. Unfortunately, Southwest’s Christmas schedule is pared back greatly, and while we could have found an easy one stop flight leaving at 230p, that was too early. So, we ended up flying old-school Southwest with 2 stops along the way.

I hadn’t done a run like that since my college days when flying between PHX and BWI actually required 2 stops on Southwest if you were lucky. This one was an ugly one. Yes, we could leave at 420p in the afternoon (from the Eastern Time Zone), but then we had to stop in Kansas City for 2 hours (Central Time Zone) and Phoenix for 30 minutes (Mountain Time Zone) before finally arriving back home in LA (Pacific Time Zone) near 10p. Normally that 420p flight is a one stop with no plane change that arrives LAX just after 7p.

As you can imagine, it was a long day, but the crews were cheerful and the legroom was good. That being said, I’m still tired.

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December 25, 2007
Southwest #712 Lv Indianapolis (IND) 420p Arr Kansas City (MCI) 455p
IND: Gate C9, Runway 23R, Dept OT
MCI: Gate 37, Runway 19L, Arr :14E
Aircraft: N698SW, Boeing 737-300, Canyon Blue, 121/137Y
Seat: 11A
Flight Time: 1h8m

Thinking Christmas wouldn’t be very crowded at the airport, we arrived only about an hour before our flight. We were right. Very few security gates were open, but it took no time at all. Well, it took a little longer because they were a little suspicious about the tea kettle I had packed into my bag. Yes, it was a Christmas present that required some clever packing.

There weren’t very many flights going, but the ones that did seemed to be full. Our plane arrived with plenty of time to turn around, and they got us ready to board 30 minutes prior. Indy has the temporary setup for the new boarding process and it was a tight squeeze. We had checked in very early and ended up with A18/A19. A1-15 is reserved for those who buy the Business Select fare, and there appeared to be only two people who had spent the extra dough. So, we were some of the first onboard.

Instinctively, we went straight to seats 11A and B. The exit row on the left side of the plane has the most unbelievable legroom. I can barely kick the seat in front of me if I’m stretched out fully. Take a look at the picture at right and you’ll see what I mean. This plane has a colorful history starting out with CP Air in Canada over 20 years ago, flying for VASP in Brazil soon after, and finally making its way to Southwest via the Morris Air acquisition. It may have a long history, but the interior was in good shape, and it didn’t show its age.

As you might expect, the crew was in a pretty festive mood, and the lead flight attendant was joking the entire way. He kept involving the kids onboard by asking if they’d had a good Christmas, asking what they got, etc. You could tell he was enjoying his day. That flight went on from Kansas City to San Diego, San Jose, and finally Reno, so I’m curious to hear how he sounded by the time he finished that grueling trip.

It was a beautiful day to fly and we had a smooth trip. Tasty honey roasted peanuts and water kept me happy, and soon enough we were on our way in to sunny Kansas City.

I always forget how far that airport is from . . . everything. It’s clear when you arrive that there’s nothing around, but at least it’s a nice airport. We deplaned and went to the only open restaurant – the Cuervo Tequileria – to eat a little and wait out the 2 hour layover. As I said, I like the airport, but there is one fatal flaw. Everything is outside security and each checkpoint is good for only a handful of gates. So, it’s a great airport for locals but a terrible one for connections.

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December 25, 2007
Southwest #1501 Lv Kansas City (MCI) 650p Arr Phoenix (PHX) 845p
MCI: Gate 38, Runway 19R, Dept :18L
PHX: Gate C1, Runway 7L, Arr :04L
Aircraft: N706SW, Boeing 737-700, Canyon Blue (winglets), ~95%Y
Seat: 11A
Flight Time: 2h26m

Soon enough, it was time to head over the gate, so we went through security again and found a seat. This is the first time I’ve seen Southwest’s new gate design fully implemented, and I liked it a lot. They had some sitting areas with tables and little chairs for kids. They have several bars with 110V and USB power ports. Combined with Kansas City’s wi-fi, you can get a lot of work done. But the best part was the big flat screen TVs showing the Suns – Lakers game. There were mostly Suns fans around, so I tried not to gloat too much when the Lakers finished them off.

Once again, we had early boarding numbers, so we hopped into place for boarding. Once the inbound plane was emptied, they let us on, and again we snagged 11A/B. Jackpot! We were staying on the plane in Phoenix, so this would be our home for a long time. This is one of the older -700s in Southwest’s fleet. In fact, it’s pushing 10 years now, but it had a nice clean interior and you wouldn’t have known from the inside.

This time, while the flight attendants were friendly, it was the captain and first officer who were joking around the most. They kept firing off joke after joke and got on the horn a lot during the flight. They also liked to mess with the flight attendants from up front. During the safety briefing, right when the flight attendant said to put on the oxygen masks and “breathe normally,” you heard heavy breathing sounds coming over the PA. Then the flight attendant started laughing. Only when it happened again on the next flight (with different flight attendants) did I realize that it was the captain waiting for the right time before interrupting their briefing.

We blasted out of Kansas City and had a straight shot to Phoenix. Though it was clear, they said we might have a few bumps, and the captain ended up settling at 34,000 ft because it reportedly had the best ride. It was smooth at first, but then the bumps started and the captain put the seatbelt sign on. He was very conservative, because even when it let up, he never turned the sign off again.

Just after we passed Albuquerque, we hit some pretty rough air. One of the pilots had come back to chat with another pilot sitting in the back when we started to bounce. (Should he be doing that?) Then the plane started descending and we saw the pilot hurriedly head back up front. We came down to 30,000 ft where we found a smoother ride on into PHX.

We did a strange approach that I can’t remember ever doing in Phoenix before. We came from the Northeast heading just east of the airport. Then we turned left between South Mountain and the airport and headed out west before hooking a U-turn and landing to the east. I can’t remember doing that approach before. (Sorry for those who have no idea what I’m talking about.)

We taxied quickly and pulled up to the gate only a couple minutes late. Everyone hopped off except for the few of us who were to continue on to LA.

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December 25, 2007
Southwest #1501 Lv Phoenix (PHX) 910p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 930p
PHX: Gate C1, Runway 7L, Dept :14L
LAX: Gate 9, Runway 24L, Arr :18L
Aircraft: N706SW, Boeing 737-700, Canyon Blue (winglets), 100%Y
Seat: 11A
Flight Time: 1h2m

On the ground, our flight attendants left and another group came onboard to take us on our final leg to LAX. The pilots remained the same, but all of a sudden they became mute. We only heard from them once during the entire flight (in addition to the heavy breathing, of course).

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the flight attendants. I’m sure some people were in good spirits if they had just started their journey, but for those of us who had already taken two flights, the last thing we wanted was a perky crew. So when the flight attendant came on and exclaimed, “Merry Christmas Everybody!!!!!!!” I would have paid anything for a set of noise-canceling headphones . . . or a baseball bat.

Once again, Southwest struggled to meet their tightly scheduled turn time and it took us 35 minutes to get back off the gate. Remember the days of 10 minute turns? I highly doubt they’d be able to pull that off these days. I suppose it is harder when everyone is lugging Christmas gifts down the aisle, but people were just really pokey in general. I have to credit one of the flight attendants who was from New England. Her sharp accent was put to good use telling people that the flight was completely full so they should take the first seat they see. I don’t know if anyone listened, but it was a good attempt.

We had a long taxi to the far west end of the field before departing into the moonlight. This flight was similar to the first flight of the day in that I had peanuts and water, and it was a smooth ride. The pilots still played it conservative, however, and left the seatbelt sign on the entire time.

We slowly descended into the sprawling lights of the LA Basin and the view was spectacular (at left, you’ll see my hometown – Long Beach). Apparently, we were coming in a little too quickly, because about 30 miles out, he dropped the gear with a thud. It was pretty startling to hear it go down so early, but we slowed down quickly and came in for a bouncy landing (that’s two in a row for these guys).

Needless to say, we were happy to be home and wanted off the airplane. When the flight attendant started singing on our taxi back, it made me ponder pulling the emergency exit. Fortunately for me, I didn’t and instead waited for us to get to the gate. It was a ghost town in the terminal with only people waiting for US Airways’ redeye flights around. We headed out, grabbed a cab, and headed home to get some sleep.

I’m baaaaaaack. Miss me?

If it’s the end of December, it’s time for Christmas in Indiana. This is my third year having traveled back to spend the long weekend with my fiancee’s family and once again, we decided to split the flying on one airline on the way out and another on the way back.

On the eastbound trip, I was cautiously excited to give Frontier a shot. It was $250.99 all-in per person, and though that was a little more than we could have found on other airlines, I liked flying Frontier back in July and wanted to fly them again. I say I was “cautiously” excited, because you may remember the nightmares of travelers stuck in Denver last year after the major snowstorm. Fortunately, we had none of those issues and the flights were excellent.

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December 21, 2007
Frontier #144 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 625a Arr Denver (DEN) 944a
LAX: Gate 39, Runway 24L, Dept :17L
DEN: Gate A38, Runway 35L, Arr :09L
Aircraft: N947FR, Airbus A319-111, Maya the Jaguar, 100% Full
Seat: 11A
Flight Time: 1h47m

Since it was the Friday before Christmas, we figured we’d need to get to the airport really early to navigate around the inexperienced travelers that come out of the woodwork at this time of year. With a 625a flight that meant a very early wake up call. We pulled up to the curb at 5a and saw no lines in our terminal. It took 10 minutes to get through security thanks to a couple of pokey people in front of us, but then we sat at the gate for awhile. They boarded the plane early, and that was good because the terminal was really cold for some reason. It seemed like everyone was onboard early, but we just sat there for awhile. The captain came on and said there were a couple planes pushing in the alley behind us so we couldn’t go. When we did push out, we ended up sitting short of the taxiway for some time. I got a little restless since I knew we didn’t have the longest connection time in DEN.

The captain finally came on and said that there was a traffic jam at LAX and we would have to wait. He said something about “the lovely air traffic control system you’ve heard so much about lately.” I found out later that LAX was experiencing 30 minute air traffic control delays. Strange.

Once airborne, we climbed into a beautiful smog-less morning in the LA Basin, washed clean by several days of rain. At left, you can see a 757 climbing off the south runways in front of Palos Verdes and Catalina in the distance. The captain said that we wouldn’t need to worry about connections because we had an excellent tailwind that would get us in almost on time. After watching the view for a few minutes, I turned back to the TV.

Frontier has LiveTV like JetBlue, but they only have 24 channels instead of JetBlue’s 36. They also charge you $5 for the pleasure unlike JetBlue, but I had no problem paying for it. I watched Sportscenter for awhile and then flipped around for a few minutes before it was already time to come in for a landing. They had come by with a drink and granola bar service, so they passed through to clean things up early thanks to the captain’s warning that it would be a rough ride on the way in.

It turned out that the ride wasn’t very rough at all, and we had a beautiful view of the front range of the Rockies as we landed from the south. Snow was due later on in the day, but it was nothing but brilliant blue sky when we arrived.We made our way off the plane into the airport that took several hours of our time last July. Fortunately, it was a much quicker visit this time. A short walk to the east end of the terminal led us to our gate, and our flight had yet to start boarding.

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December 21, 2007
Frontier #618 Lv Denver (DEN) 1025a Arr Indianapolis (IND) 250p
DEN: Gate A51, Runway 34R, Dept :27L
IND: Gate C3, Runway 5R, Arr :15L
Aircraft: N917FR, Airbus A319-111, Doc the Snowy Owl, 100% Full
Seat: 11B
Flight Time: 1h56m

The plane was apparently late getting to the gate because the flight before it was delayed. So it took some time to get it cleaned and really nobody seemed to be in any sort of hurry. When we did start boarding, it was slow and leisurely, and we sat on the gate for a long time. No announcement was made, but as I saw breathless passengers stumble on to the plane over the next several minutes, I realized we must have been waiting for late connections. That was no big deal for us, and I sat and watched tv.

Once we were in the air, I flipped through the channels and landed on a guilty pleasure, the Game Show Network. As I sat there watching Rayetta (you can see her name tag at left proving that I couldn’t make up a name like that) win at Card Sharks, I realized that I don’t want wireless internet.

If I have internet access in front of me, I’ll end up blogging, checking work email, and doing all the other things that monopolize my day (and night) more often than not. I know you can say that I can turn it off and ignore it, but I’m not like that. If it’s there, I’ll use it and regret it later on. So as I flew Frontier watching a game show I probably haven’t seen since my youth (though this was the pre-Bob Eubanks version with which I grew up), I discovered how incredibly relaxing it could be. If I had internet access, it would be just like I was anywhere else. In an increasingly connected life, I like being forced to unplug.

They gave us a choice of Doritos or SunChips (I took the latter) as we made our way over the foggy Plains below. The less common east wind in IND meant we got to land to the east, a great treat indeed. That meant we didn’t have to circle around Indy, and more importantly, it left us even closer to the distant terminal on the east side when we landed.

When it came time land, we found ourselves in a low fog in IND from about 5,000 ft up. We couldn’t see anything until just a few seconds before we landed, but it was a smooth return to the earth as we slowly drifted toward the end of the runway.

I could see the new terminal on the left, and it looks like it’s coming along nicely. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll be landing there instead. After getting off the plane, we headed out for a nice long weekend in the Circle City.

Tomorrow, I’ll have the story of our insanely long return journey involving 2 planes, 3 flights, and four states.