When forced to spend entirely too much time in airports, you have time to notice how things have changed. I don’t believe I had ever seen this convenience offered in a airport before:
If the print is too small for you, it reads “Privacy for pumping and breast-feeding.” Wow! There are times when that could have been really welcome to me and mine!
But it’s not only nursing mothers who might crave privacy, or at least a respite from the constant murmur of the airport crowd and announcements of their arrivals and departures. So here’s another accomodation which struck me as novel:
This pair of cubicles was nestled in an out-of the way corridor. One of them was already in use, and the other about to be.
If you think that the world of whimsy is far removed from the hard-edged world of airline travel, be assured that Austin, at least, has allowed its weirdness to seep into its Airport. Here’s Arrivals at Gate ∞ (see above for the entire installation):
You can even print a boarding pass to Narnia or Neverland or any of 118 other fantastical destinations.
But good luck looking for a post card at DFW, SFO, or PHX. The old-fashioned “Hello from [your state here]” way of letting folks know you are on the road is almost dead. You can still find them at AUS, though, another friendly form of Austin weirdness.
I spent quite a number of hours in four different airports last week.
San Francisco International (SFO) was my first and final. I have made many trips through this airport, but each one reveals a new aspect, as the airport is constantly re-inventing itself with new construction, new retail outlets and restaurants, and new airlines coming and old ones disappearing. I used to fly TWA and PanAm; now my flights are more likely to be United and Southwest. On departure day I am flying Southwest, and my departure is from one of the gates in one of the newer sections of Terminal One. SFO does its best to invoke the quirky sophistication of its namesake city, even though it is actually located thirty miles south of San Francisco, in San Mateo County. The shops offer authentic sourdough bread, See’s candy, and little packets of goodies wrapped in cable-car-shaped boxes, as well as t-shirts adorned with representation of the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower. Restaurants invoke the Asian/European diversity of the City, with Vietnamese, Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, Vegan and Italian supplementing the standard Starbuck’s.
You can also pick up the usual sports-themed offerings from the Golden State Warriors and the 49ers (who actually play home games fifty miles south in Santa Clara, but hey, who’s picky!) Unfortunately, the airport has none of the Victorian charm of historic San Francisco, but I guess a Victorian airport would be oxymoronic.
Dallas-Love Field (DAL) was my next stop. I had expected to be picked up right away, and had my carryon with me, but my friend was unexpectedly two hours delayed, so I had plenty of time to explore DAL.
Love Field is the former major airport into Dallas, but has been supplanted by the much larger Dallas/Fort Worth Intenational positioned exactly on the county line between the two rival cities. Dallas, I am afraid, lacks a civic personality, and this shows in its secondary airport. The shops offer vanilla t-shirts that say, basically, “I was in Dallas and I bought this t-shirt.” The restaurants include Dunkin Donuts, Maggiano’s, Baskin-Robbins, Chick-fil-A, and Chili’s. One Texas staple, Whataburger, is also available, and there is a Dallas Cowboys store, but in general one could as well be in St. Louis. I hunted in vain throughout the terminal for either a Dallas post card or a local newspaper.
I was aiming next to fly out of Austin-Bergstrom International on an American flight to DFW. The flight I had intended to exit on was cancelled, so I had plenty of time to check AUS out while waiting around on standby and then for an airport pickup from a friend.
Sophistication is not a word one associates with Austin, but quirkiness certainly is. Somehow I always seem to arrive or leave Austin around the time of Willie Nelson’ s birthday – or maybe they just celebrate this prominent citizen year round. Plenty of post cards here, celebrating the SWSX music festival, the Congress street bats, the mud-colored State Capitol, and the scenic downtown poised along the Colorado River. There are at least eight venues and stages where live music is presented during the week.
And plenty of local businesses are represented, including Book People (“the largest independently owned book store in Texas” now that Archer City’s Booked Up went belly-up), Earl Campbell’s Taco Truck (intact), East Side Pies, Haymaker and others. Not a sign of a chain restaurant anywhere. Nor any sports-related gear – Austin is blessedly free of major leaguery.
I never made it to DFW but was rescheduled on a flight to the Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX), with a two-hour layover. So, I went from the Barbara Jordan terminal, named for a firebrand Democratic governor in a state since turned GOP, to the Barry Goldwater terminal, named for a firebrand Republican governor in a state edging toward Democratic. Such is history.
A strange feeling of deja vu in the Phoenix Airport – it was just like the Dallas airport, only with mountains around. I’d swear the T-shirts were identical, except for the city name – same diamond-shape logo behind the name, same dusky blues, pinks, and lavenders. Phoenix, of course, is even shorter on history than Dallas. Flying out, the inhabited city looks like something blue (swimming pools) and green (golf courses) that spilled accidentally on the sere gray desert.
And finally back to SFO and the Harvey Milk terminal. American flights come into much less convenient gates than Southwest flights, and there is a lamentable lack of moving sidewalks for the weary returning traveler. The route to baggage claim is also poorly signed – a gentleman stationed at the end of the seeming blank corridor directed me around a kink in the hallway to the escalator down. But I was home.
My husband is something of a connoisseur of National Memorials, having been born and raised in Gettysburg, PA. So on our recent visit to Hawaii we fulfilled his long-held wish to visit the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.
The monument now bears the cumbersome official title of “World War II Valor in the Pacific Nation Monument-Hawaii.” Not only could we visit the shrine over the sunken hulk of the USS Arizona with most of its crew permanently interred inside, but also tour the USS Missouri, on which the final surrender was signed by the Japanese, and the submarine USS Bowfin. Large interactive exhibitions explain the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, the attack, and the role of submarines in World War II. An excellent audio tour led us through the exhibits located both in the galleries and around the grounds, ending at a theater giving even more vivid detail about the attack.
It had been a quiet Sunday morning, some of the sailors still in their bunks recoving from the gaieties of Saturday night, others about to raise the flag to signal the official beginning of duties, when the Japanese planes roared in. The attack was finely targeted to take out the US battleships, lined up neatly on Battleship Row. Over a thousand men died in the USS Arizona alone when it sank to the bottom of the harbor with no way out.
Of the 2403 people killed that day, only 49 were civilians. But this was still the largest number of civilian deaths due to military action on US soil since the Civil War, and remains the largest number today, (discounting 9-11-01 as a terrorist, not a military action.)\The US and Canada were unique among the major combatant nations in WWII in having almost no civilian fatalities on their own soil. Russia lost over 4.5 million civilians, Germany over two million, Japan three million, and China over twenty million. Civilians in Great Britain, France, and Italy died in the hundreds of thousands. But the war stayed far away from us. Including the 49 lost on December 7, 1941, mainly due to faulty anti-aircraft shells falling in residential areas, the total civilian deaths on US soil came to 55.
US civilians have been sheltered from war by our broad ocean boundaries to east and west, and our good neighbors to north and south. Except for the Civil War, we have always been able to keep our wars on other people’s territory. During the current wars in the Mid-East we send our “military advisers” far afield with our drones and our missiles, and if a few of them blunder across a home-made land mine or get caught in crossfire, we might heave a sigh as we read about it at the bottom of page 4 of the newspaper.
Both my brothers are Army veterans. Both spent a good part of their service overseas. One was repeatedly shot at, the other wasn’t. Both survived without physical injury, but not without mental and emotional scars. I am tremendously proud of both of them. They signed up to to be strangers in a hostile land, to run risks , to be targeted, so that you and I could be comfortable.
Our soldiers, sailors and air force are our gladiators, fighting our proxy battles in foreign arenas, so that we can be safe in our homes from invasion. Don’t wait until Memorial Day to honor the dead, but smile at a living person in uniform today, while he or she can smile back.
In Phoenix: The Heard Museum of Native American Art. This museum is fascinating, exhaustive, instructive and almost overwhelming in the size of its collection and the detail in which it explains the many culuture of Native Americans of Arizona. Fortunately, we had a time limit. We focused first on a special exhibit of Georgia O’Keefe paintings of the Southwest. This was on its last day, but if it is a sample of the quality of special exhibits at the Heard, I would suggest you pay attention to whatever is being featured on your visti.
Of the Heard collection I was most fascinated by the collection of kachina dolls donated by the late Senator Barry Goldwater, maybe because as a child I was given a Kachina doll by a visiting relative. Learning the stories and symbology of these artifacts could have enthralled me for the entire afternoon.
Another bonus which lured us back outside was the Annual Indian Market and Fair, featuring Indian dancers in elaborate Hopi feather costumes and juried Indian art.
If you go to the Heard and need a break from all that culture, I can recommend their lunch restaurant. We ate tacos and Mexican salad in the plaza – a lovely, lively setting.
Along Higway 17 to Sedona –
About half-way to Sedona you’ll need a rest stop. The Rock Springs Café offers deservedly famous pie: a killer lemon meringue, pecan pie made with Jim Beam, plus serviceable salads, burgers, and homey fare. And a stuffed polar bear in the gift shop.
Montezuma’s Castle National Monument – this small but fascinating park features a 5 story cliff dwelling, positioned high on a cliff overlooking a lovely sycamore-lined creek. The visitor’s center is a fine introduction to the site, and the stroll on the loop trail looking up at the mysteriously abandoned structure is a welcome break to the highway.
Once you get to Sedona, you’ll need to get in tune with the New Age vibe, so you better seek out a good Vegan restaurant. I can recommend Chocolatree, an unpretentious combination restaurant and chocolateria along the road west from the main Y intersection. My less-adventurous companion was dubious bout the tarot cards on the table, but ate every bit of her black bean chili. My Meatless Mushroom Medley was gray but yummy. The Mediterranean Madness ordered by my other fellow traveler -quinoa, almonds, raisins, sunflower seeds, coconut milk, and more- was too rich to finish. Still we managed to share a Chocolate Ganache of dates, raisins, macadamia nuts, coconut milk, and raw cacao, but we had enough leavings to share the next night with a table of 8 and it went around twice.
Sedona started as a Mormon mission; then came the miners, whose main remnant is the picturesque semi-ghost town of Jerome dangling from a bluff across the valley. Then came the New Agers, with their crystals, their ethnic garb, their peculiar dietary restrictions, and their talk of mystical vortexes of energy to be found among the red rocks. With the skyrocketing prices of precious metals, there is a current threat that old mines will be opened and subjected to new tech hydraulic mining, starting the cycle over again. But meanwhile, visitors continue to be magnetically attracted to Sedona, whether it is vertical energy or simply the stunning scenery and space.
I am part of a group of nineteen who have signed up for five days of hiking in the Sedona back country. Our hike leader is a former lawyer who was involved in environmental cases and must have asked himself the Big Questions: WHY am I doing this legal work which I don’t t enjoy? WHAT IF I quit and went to work for Roads Scholar? HOW can I make it work? He found a niche as a faculty member at Northern Arizona State University solely employed in facilitating hikes, conventions, bonding sessions, and so on for the U. Is this a cool job or what?
The three guides also include one immigrant, from the Caucasus. He had emigrated from Russia to Latvia at age 16. His mother saw him off at the railway station. She asked, “Will you be coming back?” He answered, as the train pulled out, “No.” After a second life in Latvia, he joined the merchant marine and traveled the world, living on ship. “Wherever we docked, the purser would give us a passport that would let us ashore without trouble.” I missed the story of how he came to Sedona. I did hear him say “Sedona is my 4th life.” He is a firm believer in the positive energy of the vortexes. “They changed my life.”
A second guide is also a strong believer in the power of vortexes. We stood in the center of a natural amphitheater in the rocks, purportedly a vortex site, and he told us of meeting a Native American at this site where he was meditating. The Indian pulled out a conch shell from his pack and, after asking permission blew a deep note. The sound traveled in a circle around them as it echoed from one wall to another, a truly mystical moment.
We tried to believe, but we could not reproduce any mysterious effects of the vortexes. We ate delicious food in a vegan restaurant, and felt just as stuffed and no healthier than if we had over-indulged at McDonald’s. However, the drama of the soaring rocks, the rippling streams, and the blue sky soaring to forever was enough to energize me without benefit of crystals or magnetic fields. Just being with beauty makes you more aware of what being means.
Visiting Scottsdale had not been high on my list. After all, I grew up only an hour from Carmel, the West Coast apogee of artsy quaintness-by-the-sea. What was Scottsdale with its art galleries but Carmel with cactus instead of ocean? As usual, once I had visited, I knew once again how wrong preconceptions can be. Scottsdale is to Carmel as meaty BBQ ribs are to seared sea scallops – both wonderful, but incomparable.
We visited on a Sunday morning, so the galleries along the Art Walk were closed. We were more relieved than disappointed: the galleries would have seduced us into dallying inside, while on a temperate and sunny morning there was plenty to see in the sculptures that lined the sidewalk and rose from the median. At first I noted the proliferation of horses frozen in wood, ceramic, steel, and bronze, galloping, rearing, bareback in herds or straddled by cowboys, cowgirls, or the Original Inhabitants. [Note: We met several locals with red-brown skin and aquiline noses, who told us to “Relax. We call ourselves Indians. It’s easier.” I will follow this advice hereon.] But there were also bronze children, artists, and unmounted Indian maidens both nude and clothed. Also various vaguely humanoid shapes, and a giant green head which might have been Buddha.
We left the Art Walk and meandered toward the center of town, a meander made easy by a grass-lined pathway going beside and over a dry creek and eventually leading us to the central plaza, bordered by the City Hall, Art Museum, and Performing Arts Center, all impressive and interestingly designed modern buildings. The plaza was full of activity: a craft fair was just setting up, with tents offering Indian artifacts, jewelry, clothing, and food. A stage at one end promised music to come, and some families were already staking a claim with blankets on the sloping lawn in front of the bandstand. And at the other side of the plaza I found an old friend, one I had first met in Philadelphia, then encountered again in Tokyo and Taipei. I was delighted to see again Robert Indiana’s famous LOVE sculpture.
On the way back to our car we walked through Old Town Scottsdale, and found the tourist gift shops beginning to open. I bought a silver-and-turquoise earcuff to replace a much nicer one I had been given and lost years ago, hoping to combine old and new memories.
My husband is something of a connoisseur of National Memorials, having been born and raised in Gettysburg, PA. So on our recent visit to Hawaii we fulfilled his long-held wish to visit the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.
Allyson Johnson 