Early morning flight for Louisville, KY. Everybody in the plane was bleary eyed or already sleeping. A few in the first class were sipping airplane coffee. And all of us were wondering why the plane door was not closing in spite of no more passengers getting on and it being already past our departure time. The weather was fine in Atlanta.

Then the flight attendant grabbed the PA. I was sure she was going to announce a weather delay or a mechanical problem. Instead she asked for some patience as we await two more persons to get on board. Some passenger way up in the first class yelled out asking why could we not leave without them? It was already past departure time.

The fifty-something flight attendant had built the perfect set up. She knew what she was doing. For, she responded on the PA, without missing a beat “Because, Sir, they are our pilot and first officer”!! She certainly made a potentially irritating situation funny.

As a post script, a few minutes later, our missing “passengers” came onboard and informed us “We have no idea what happened to your pilot and first passenger. We just landed from Colombus and we were told to run to your plane and take it to Louisville”. Wow!!

Another first time experience in my annals of continuous jumping in and out of planes…

I got some really innovative and some very funny answers to my question “Guess what happened” with the picture of the flight attendant with two shoes in hand and every passenger looking at him. Bob was outrageously funny with his options of “Now push the plane” or “I was a Spanish forward” 😉

The reality was no less crazy. Somebody had left a suitcase at the gate drop area but it did not have the pink tag. All the carry on did not fit in the bins. So a few passengers had to get out, put the carry on suitcases near the plane door for gate drop. You are given a pink tag to identify your suitcase when you disembark. And this one did not have such a tag attached.

First the flight attendant announced for the passenger who did not pick up the tag to ring the “call attendant” bell. No response. Then he announced the same thing again. Still nobody owned up to the bag.

I figured he was going to just leave the bag at the airport. But I had figured him to be a less industrious person than he turned to be. As a next move, he simply picked up the suitcase in his hand and walked up and down the aisle asking passengers in every row if it belonged to any of them. Still no takers!! Then he came on the PA again “Okay, folks, I am going to do this again!” And yet again, he walked up and down the aisle with the suitcase. And yet again, he came up empty handed. I mean suitcase-handed 🙂 At this point of time, I had a vague suspicion that he was trying to keep us entertained as the flight kept getting delayed.

So, you are still wondering where do the shoes fit in, right? Well for a moment, he seemed to have left the plane. And in a minute he came back, with those two shoes in his hand and announced on the PA “In case you did not recognize your suitcase, you might recognize your shoes. They were in the suitcase!”. And he walked up and down the aisle. Not once. But twice over. And I was laughing my head out. To capture this incredible moment, I fished out my phone and took a few snaps.

That was too funny.

Wait! We are not done yet! Evidently the suitcase had met a really really determined flight attendant. After a few minutes, he again reappeared – now he had some toiletries (like Old Spice After Shave) in his hand and went around trying to find their owner!!! As you can imagine, at this point of time, we were almost rooting for the plane to have a few more delays. And I am sure, if the owner was there in the plane, there was no way in God’s green earth he was going to admit it!! Unfortunately, the pilot announced that we had received a wheels up time.

My friend gave up on his search and left the suitcase at the airport and off we went.

I wanted to take a picture of him and hand him one of those “Job Well
Done” card that Delta gives us to give to appropriate staff. But, out of courtesy to people who had connections, I sat back till most of the plane had emptied. And lost my friend for ever in the process. By the time I came out, he had left the plane or at least was nowhere near the door.

This one should have been my puzzle of the week 🙂
Look at the picture carefully. I am in Delta flight 1195 – needless to say, grounded in DC due to weather in Atlanta et cetera et cetera et cetera. And then something happened.

What you see in this picture is our flight attendant with two shoes in his hand and all the passengers staring at him.

Take a guess – what happened? Points for the most humorous and the most far fetched ideas.

I will tell you that even for a travel veteran like me, this was bizarre!!

I will post the answer after a day….

The last three centers of my new company that I have visited – Sheboygan WI, Lexington KY and Corvallis OR, share some traits – none have any normal size planes flying into their airports and there is no full service Marriott in any of these places.

But each one of them is also very beautiful. Additionally, the ice from cold Sheboygan and water from rainy Corvallis allows me to have my bourbon from Lexington any which way I want – with a splash of water or on the rocks 🙂

They put this sign right after TSA security where you put your shoes and belts back on and collect your stuff and put them back in your bag…
Makes me smile every time I see it….

Remember last Nov, I posted a picture from Liberia airport in Costa Rica about the humongous fans at the airport by a company called Big Ass Fans? Also, that my local guide Jorge told me that the company in based out of Kentucky? This week I found out that they are headquartered in Lexington!!! Here is a fan I saw when I landed in Lexington airport!!! Check out the size compared with the shops nearby!!!

Elsewhere, they build highways to connect one city to another. Here in Atlanta, we have built highways to connect one accident to another.

Coming up for air from Lexington, KY. First impression of Lexington – it is one huge horse stable!!

Remember the wood fence that we typically put around horse farms? Well that is exactly the fence that is used here everywhere…. around housing complexes, gas stations, shopping malls, Macdonalds and even the airport!!