On Aug 10, 2016, at 9:11, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> strewth!!! no wonder I don't travel -except in Raynes Park by foot !!

Ah, Patrick, and Doug,

At least our bags didn’t go astray.

Nor was there a missed connection like the one on our outward trip -

Looking for a room-with-bed after midnight in a town booked out

and Hotels.com turning out to be a scam website, and … etc etc.


> 
> 
> On 10/08/2016 16:21, Max Richards wrote:
>> Connecting Flights
>> 
>> [Melbourne/Auckland/SanFrancisco/Seattle]
>> 
>> A word about overcharging
>> with the morning’s hotel manager-
>> and a quick dash to the lift
>> as my iPhone calls me -
>> it’s John for a ‘Bon Voyage’ -
>> 
>> just not well-timed as
>> up in our room, 1607,
>> I’ve left my wife near fainting
>> ‘I just can’t do this!’
>> Rushing back to her -
>> 
>> I lose my connection
>> with John as the lift door
>> slides shut on me - sorry, John.
>> Everything depends on
>> getting her out and into the cab.
>> 
>> We’d planned on a 9 a.m. smooth
>> departure for the airport.
>> It’s after 10 when we leave.
>> Air New Zealand hasn’t quite
>> closed its check-in desk.
>> 
>> The good woman says Yes,
>> your wheelchair is booked.
>> Here it is, and is your husband
>> OK about pushing it?
>> He’s not all that strong, says
>> 
>> the wife. ‘That’s an insult!’
>> I retort, clutching the handrail.
>> Off we go, and soon I feel
>> a certain lack of muscle
>> making for slowness.
>> 
>> At security she has to stand,
>> and that’s when from behind
>> I make an ill-timed lurch
>> clipping her ankles. Ouch!
>> I can’t apologize enough.
>> 
>> The way to our departure gate
>> is through a thousand shops
>> I’d rather not have to navigate,
>> nor then to steer us up a slope.
>> How far is it? is time up?
>> 
>> They find us, kindly Air
>> New Zealand staff. ‘Sir,
>> let me take the wheelchair.’
>> Indeed he may - we show
>> our boarding passes, I follow
>> 
>> him, chair, wife, down one
>> last slope, and there’s the plane
>> and welcome, last to board.
>> Good riddance to the chair,
>> however much it helped.
>> 
>> 2
>> 
>> Auckland - we’ll do without
>> the chair, stand in line - security
>> insists no-one can wait
>> for their connecting flight
>> without being checked again.
>> 
>> Time to relax and even shop -
>> those t-shirts are cute and cheap -
>> I’ll take them both, the Mt Cook
>> Lily Orchid, pink on black -
>> no lily, more a buttercup.
>> 
>> But hurry to the connecting flight!
>> Which time-zone’s this? I’m seized with fright,
>> and bustle my wheel-chair-less wife
>> to the wrong departure gate!
>> Go back up there fast, they may not wait!
>> 
>> If only I could tell the time,
>> if numbers would stay in my head -
>> they’re on my boarding pass -
>> where did I put it? some safe place,
>> safe as my visa in my passport!
>> 
>> 3
>> 
>> Once we’re landed at San Fran
>> seeing our suitcases again
>> will make me feel secure and safe,
>> but first Homeland Security
>> will scrutinize us carefully.
>> 
>> A student’s document, stapled
>> by the US consulate firmly
>> in her passport, a student’s spouse’s
>> document in mine. Enough, surely?
>> The man in black’s doubt rouses
>> 
>> at something on his black screen.
>> He calls a colleague, shares concern.
>> ‘Have you been in the Middle East
>> in the last five years?’ Not me.
>> We’re led away to a waiting room,
>> 
>> our passports lodged at the end
>> of a long shelf. Officers wend
>> to and fro amongst several pairs
>> of travelers, some in wheelchairs -
>> does disability rouse suspicion?
>> 
>> But our connecting flight!
>> How can they ask their questions
>> of me and say: ‘well, all right,
>> go get your bags through Customs’ -
>> yet leave us time to make it
>> 
>> all the way to United Airlines
>> in the next building? departing soon!
>> Timidly I mention this. I gesture
>> to my wife in her wheelchair -
>> ‘she’s an invalid.’ He scorns the word.
>> 
>> Yet something moves him. While
>> others in ones and twos file
>> to the interview room, he returns
>> us our passports, points to the door.
>> From which we speed - to another queue.
>> 
>> Wait your turn to the baggage hall.
>> Find your carousel - what number?
>> empty of bags, but there are ours!
>> bunched nearby, one two three four.
>> I can’t manage them on a trolley
>> 
>> plus my disabled wife, but ask -
>> and a worker’s here for the task.
>> Out he leads us,  past ‘Connecting
>> Flights’, to the wide intersecting
>> of walkways with numbers on.
>> 
>> Check your Bags Here. We do.
>> Follow through to United, who
>> have their own labyrinth. Where’s
>> our Seattle connection? how soon?
>> We just make it. Some afternoon!
>> 
>> 4
>> 
>> Mount Rainier shines in summer light.
>> The wheelchair person at SeaTac
>> has a son in Kalgoorlie, which she likes!
>> She’s from Fiji! I praise their footballers.
>> I’d tip her if I could find my dollars.