Pining for wheels.
I've been looking into airlines.
I want to go to Ecuador around the end of October.
I've flown a couple of times before but that's about it. Once or twice. There and back again, in a straight line.
I'm nearly a flight virgin.
It should be easy I think.
Every time before I went through a travel agent. Now we have on-line stuff. I can do it from home, in my underwear.
It seemed so easy. In conceptual form. Not so much in practice. For me.
I want to go from Seattle to Guayaquil. Which ought to be straightforward. But isn't. So much.
It seems I can go to Houston, and then to Miami, and then to Guayaquil. Or to New York, Miami, and Guyaquil. Or somewhere, somewhere, and Guyaquil. Or is there another somewhere in there?
Can't remember.
What I do. Remember. Is. Forty-some hours for the slowest trip, so far, maybe 14 and change for the quickest.
This is 2012 and planes travel over 500 miles an hour. But still, terminals travel at zero. And that's where most of the time collects. First in the corners, then up the walls, and finally collapsing down on your head to suffocate.
I long for 1968. I went 1200 or so miles by Greyhound. There. And back. Aside from having to walk past everyone to the back of the bus to take a leak, and going without any real food for a day or so it wasn't that bad. And not washing.
Every stop, you could get off and breathe some air. Walk around the outside of the bus. Look at the sky. Hear sounds.
Then go again.
It was real.
By air, it's a fantasy movie, sealed in a can.
The thought police run through your mind. Up and down your body, irradiating it, inspecting your shoes. Doubtful of your humanity.
After they get done you moo with the others while being herded along the tube, and then you sit, helpless, for hours.
Then another tube and you're in a strange terminal that's the same as all the others, where you sit. Maybe an hour. Maybe a day. Maybe it's 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. Maybe something else.
Water torture. Without the clean-ness of water.
Stuffy torture. Cramped-ness. Stale air. Receding life force.
There appear to be at least 1898 different ways to get from Seattle to Guayaquil. Most follow exactly the identical route, but over differing terrains of time and with shifting degrees of reality. They all hurt.
I spent half a day on it and know less than before.
I'll give it hell tomorrow. For sure.
There must be an answer in there somewhere.
I miss Greyhound, creepy as it was. Real as it was. It was real.