It is not often that airport Marriotts pay a lot of attention to aesthetics. They are meant for busy business passengers looking for a bed to sleep in for the night. That is why the bars are open very late at airport Marriotts 🙂
The Cincinnati airport Marriott seems to be different. Beautiful fountain in the atrium.
I am surprised I did not learn this before today. I knew Kansas City airport is not in Kansas but Missouri… but Cincinnati too??
Got down at Cincinnati, took the rental car and my iPhone instructed me to take “Kentucky 212”. I am like, “What? I am still inside the airport area”. Checked into the hotel and asked the young lady what the deal was.
And it is then that I realized Cincinnati airport is not in Ohio either. It is in Kentucky.
So, I had to look it up. A very interesting history. Copied the Wikipedia story here…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved preliminary funds for site development of the Greater Cincinnati Airport February 11, 1942. This was part of the Army Air Corps program to establish training facilities during World War II. At the time, air traffic in the area centered around Lunken Airport just southeast of central Cincinnati. Lunken opened in 1926 and was located in the Ohio River Valley. Due to its location, the airport frequently experienced fog, and the 1937 flood completely submerged its runways and two-story terminal building. While federal officials wanted an airfield site that would not be prone to flooding, Cincinnati officials hoped to build Lunken into the premier airport of the region.
A coalition of officials from Boone, Kenton and Campbell Counties in Kentucky took advantage of Cincinnati’s short-sightedness and lobbied Congress to build an airfield there. Boone County officials offered a suitable site on the provision that Kenton County paid the acquisition cost. In October 1942, Congress provided $2 million to construct four runways.
The field officially opened August 12, 1944, with the first B-17 bombers beginning practice runs on August 15. As the tide of the war had already turned, the Air Corps only used the field until 1945 before it was declared surplus. On October 27, 1946, a small wooden terminal building opened and the airport prepared for commercial service.
The first airplane, an American Airlines DC-3 from Cleveland, Ohio, landed at the airport January 10, 1947, at 9:53 am. A Delta Air Lines flight followed moments later. The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 97 weekday departures: 37 American, 26 Delta, 24 TWA, 8 Piedmont and 2 Lake Central. As late as November 1959 the airport had four 5,500 ft (1,700 m) runways at 45-degree angles, the north–south runway eventually being extended into today’s runway 18C/36C.
Since I was already in a place that I had great difficulty in pronouncing the name (Coeur d’Alene), I figured might as well visit a place that I will have absolute no chance ever of pronouncing. So, I walked to this place – it is actually a quiet beach by the lake – called Hnya'(pqi’nn. I am not kidding you. The name has two apostrophes and one parentheses! Evidently, in the language of the Couer d’Alene tribe (also called the Schitsu’umish tribe), it means “Gathering Place” and is pronounced “hin-yap-keehn-un”.
See the picture on the top. This beach is steeped in history. Many centuries ago, various tribes – at least three more – used to gather exactly at this spot during spring and fall to celebrate with their families and give Thanks. They used to sing, dance, have competitive sports and fish a lot from the river and lake.
Many years later – in the 18th century French fur traders discovered the tribes here. That explains the French name of this place. Evidently the tribes were very tough negotiators. I understand in French that is what the name refers to.
Towards the second half of the 19th century, General Sherman (remember the quote of his and his picture that I had talked about last week that I found walking between Terminal B and C at the Atlanta airport?) had a fort built right behind the beach and called it Fort Coeur d’Alene. That was later renamed after him.
And today, that fort has been reconstructed and built out to be the North Idaho College. See the pictures on the bottom half.
That was an amazing history lesson. I went down to the quiet beach for a few minutes and tried to imagine what that beach must have witnessed over the centuries. Then I slowly strolled back to my hotel.
Remember Sheboygan Falls on Sheboygan river in Sheboygan city in Sheboygan county? Well, today I arrived, after multiple flights and car rides to a really really beautiful resort called Couer d’Alene in a really cute city called Couer d’Alene by an exquisite lake among the mountains called, of course, Lake Couer d’Alene among a forest park called – no points for guessing – Couer d’Alene.
One big difference. Unlike “Sheboygan”, I have not figured out how to pronounce this name 🙂 For the curious, this is in Idaho on the border of Washington.
Had it not been for the young lady sitting next to me on my Delta flight back home a few weeks back, I would have never realized that back in 1837, Stephen H. Long, the Chief Engineer of Western and Atlantic Railroad had described Atlanta (my home for the last seven years) as “A good location for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store and nothing else”. Or the beauty of the Atlanta airport itself (and I must have visited it – on a conservative basis five hundred times at least).
I forget where I was flying from but I remember as I sat down in my aisle seat, the lady in the window seat next to me asked “I wanted to apologize upfront for inconveniencing you. I did not get an aisle seat today and I will have to bother you to go the restroom later”.
No big deal to me. So I said “Not a problem at all. I can always do with getting up and stretching”. It appeared she always chose aisle seat, just like me. So I asked “Looks like you travel a lot”. “Every week!”, she said.
I did not reveal that that is what I have to do too. Instead, I said “I noticed the Asics shoes you are wearing. Are you a runner?”. “Yes! I try running every day”, she said. “Really?”, I asked, “Does it not interfere with your travel schedule?”. Personally, I knew how difficult that could be.
She agreed but then went on to explain the tricks she had learnt on the road to keep up with her metabolism level and diet control. Of all the tips she gave me, one stuck in my mind. She said she avoided taking trains at airports, cabs if she could help it, moving sidewalks, automated escalators and simply focused on walking or climbing stairs whenever she could in her day to day life. And that night, at the terminal train station, we wished each other well as I stepped into the airport train and she walked away. And I told myself “She had a point. I should try that next time”.
And ever since, I have stopped taking the train at Atlanta station. It actually felt good initially. Then it became a habit. I would just keep walking thru the tunnel dragging my suitcase, most likely on the phone talking to somebody, my eyes to the ground not noticing anything else. Eventually, I would reach my destination and think “That was good. I got some exercise”.
Till today.
Today, my flight was out of Terminal C. Starting from Terminal T, then A, then B and then C, that was a long walk. But I am glad I did it. Atlanta airport is always known for its art. But the walls in the tunnel between Terminal B and C is a fascinating depiction of the history of Atlanta over the last 800 years. Before today, if you had asked me of Atlanta’s past, I probably would have said “Martin Luther King”, “slaves”, “cotton farms” and pretty much stop there. I might even have incorrectly thrown in Jimmy Carter to show that I was up and up with modern history 🙂
If you ever are in Atlanta airport, especially with kids, do get off at Terminal B station and walk till Terminal C. It will give you and the kids a great understanding of the history of the place called Atlanta today. There are numerous pictures, anecdotes and quotes adorning the walls in a chronological fashion.
That quote from the Chief Engineer was awesome just to look back at it and realize how terrible we often are in predictions. Speaking of hubris, you will find a picture of a young girl – Martha Lumpkin – whose dad, once the Governor of Georgia (and infamous for brutally removing the Cherokees from Georgia) renamed the town “Marthasville” in honor of his youngest daughter! (The city was called Terminus before that because that is where Western and Atlantic Railroad terminated – one more testimony to their imaginative powers 🙂 ). Ironically, the name was changed to Atlanta primarily at the suggestion of another Chief Engineer – from a competitive railroad company!!
Another picture that caught my eye was the famed General of the Union Army – W.T. Sherman. It was not his picture so much as his quote – which is acutely relevant even in today’s world: “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it”.
That walk which should have taken me 5-6 minutes lasted a full half an hour.
And here is the real irony at the end. After walking all that distance, I was so hungry and with such little time to get to the plane that I grabbed some junk food on the way and merrily munched it away, completely oblivious of all the diet tips my fellow passenger had given me that evening. I regained all my calories and more.
I cannot wait for my next flight that might leave from Terminal D or E or F, though! I wonder what those walks will bring to me…
