Mike: traveling

I really like that line from Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" where he ponders "Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hail souls out of men's bodies?". In a way, I feel the same way about jet fuel and terminals. Every time I travel, I seem to invent a new adventure in my head to entertain myself on my journey. Something about walking down one jetway, sitting down, and walking back up another jetway to your destination thousands of miles away, is the closest thing to a magic time machine that I will ever come to. It just seems that the selection of which jetway to walk down is the difference of where you end up and what the day holds for you. Walk down one, and you are that much closer to people you miss and would like to visit. Walk down another and carry out your 20-hour workday that's been planned.

This time I was traveling to help my old professor out with a problem. He's in his '70's now, and it felt nice to be useful to him. I was confident that I could help him--he had some equipment which didn't seem to be working properly, and he was working on-site at an archeological site in Arizona to document ruins from over a thousand years ago. Since he has been a big advocate of my company, I got my boss to approve a visit so I can get him up and running again.

Although I have traveled to most of the states in the US, I have never been to New Mexico, which has a distinct culture. Through an acquaintence, I once found myself house-sitting for a couple who had an entire house decorated in an elaborate Southwestern motif--eh, not for me. But I did learn to appreciate the fact that it is unique and appreciable by some.

The very first thing that caught my attention was the first leg of the journey. The new acquaintences in the row next to me were really hitting it off. I tried reading for a while, but I couldn't focus on the book--there was a charming girl sitting between two men (reminds me of a joke--a pretty girl, settling between two rough-looking men, comments quietly as she sits, "a rose between two thorns..." One of the burly men retorts "More like a tongue sandwich!") Anyway, the girl was loud and laughing and talked the whole time--she was a radio show producer. At one point, I couldn't help but look over, and I noticed that the man sitting next to me had absolutely the hairiest hands I've ever seen. Tufts of thick, black, 2-inch-long hair streamed out of his cuffs and continued up to the row of knuckles on his hand. I thought he might be some kind of tamed Sasquatch. I thought that his paw-fur might be constantly getting caught in machinery or appliances and pose a danger. Ironically, on mandatory and incredulous further inspection, he was nearly bald on top of his head. I wonder if he often poses with his hands folded on top of his scalp...

When the plane landed, I quietly walked out of the plane into the Albuquerque airport. From the air, the desert and the indistinct shadows of mountain peaks in the distance were actually quite beautiful. The sky is particuarly blue and the earth very red. I can see how this would be inspiring to most who are allowed to absorb it slowly and naturally, not force-fed. In the terminal there was a sweet smell of fresh corn tortillas, grilled and smokey, wafting strongly through the whole wing. I could smell the southwestern spices--diced jalapeno peppers and onions mixed with tomatoes.

As I ate some of the local cuisine and waited for the next leg of my flight, I texted Fran "I'm here in New Mexico--I sure miss the USA..." I guess because lots of people don't know geography, or the fact that we also border Mexico, it is apparently true that people possess the misconception that New Mexico is not part of the US.

I finally went through the right door which took me to my old professor, who is actually a botanist. As he drove along dangerously, complaining of all the other drivers on the road, he was often distracted by the local flora, pointing out the giant saguaro cacti flanking the road, the the flowering yucca, red and yellow, along the median.

I solved the equipment problem in about an hour, leaving us about five more to fill before I caught my return flight. He had offered for me to stay over at the house he is renting while working there, but that didn't feel quite right, so I had scheduled everything to be a day trip, flying in on the earliest flight and out on the last one to leave. He's my professor, and I've known him for over 12 years, but I feel more comfortable knowing him at a distance. Inevitably, people fail your expectations when you learn more about them. Riding in the car while they drive, for example.

He took me on a walking tour in the beautiful Arizona desert--the air was cool and dry and perfectly comfortable. We were down in a flat spot surrounded by four or five mountain ranges in the distance. He stopped to examine some of the plants to see if they had pollinated via some kind of botanic OB/GYN exam, which I was a little embarrassed to discuss with him for some reason or another.

We went to a restaurant and, upon his recommendation, I ordered exactly the same thing that he did, but when the meals were delivered, I got some other combination of ground corn meal, beans, and cheese, than he did. Same ingredients, but different configuration--this irritated him greatly because he wanted me to try his favorite lunch. I dismissed it and started eating, and we were talking about the shooting at the Virginia Tech campus. It was particularly interesting to discuss with my professor, because he had personally witnessed the shooting on campus at the University of Texas in 1966. He recounted how he was having lunch with a colleague and they noticed people falling down in the courtyard. Since it was the '60's, they just assumed it was another protest of some sort or another.

In the middle of the conversation, he cut a forkful of his lunch and plunked it on my plate for me to sample. Inwardly, I gagged and wanted to run screaming from the room. Ever since microbiology class, which was followed closely in my education by epidemiology, I have had a slightly skewed, disturbed view of the world of germs and disease transmission. In twenty seconds my thoughts had run the circuit of spilling my tray on the ground, feigning complete satiation, honestly expressing that I didn't want to share man-germs with anyone, and then to acceptance of my fate. I scooped up the corn tortilla with beans and ate it like one of the contestants of Survivor swallowing a hairy worm or uncooked chicken fetus or something.

The rest of the day was occupied by being introduced to nearly everyone else working on the project, which was really nice. We tested the equipment and got great results--the problems were so minor that I started to wonder if I should have come at all to begin with.

The flight home was eventful, but I'll spare all but the most necessary details. My notes include watching a nun sleep while leaning on her hand, and a really tough-punk-looking kid with piercings, tattoos, and scary-looking clothes and shoes menacing everyone in line. When no one was watching, he slowly reached into his bag and drew out an asthma inhaler and used it, then went back to surly thoughts of kicking ass.

As we waited to go up the jetway into the Albuquerque airport, the man next to me commented, "I always have to transfer through this airport and I hate the way it smells! The damned Quiznos always burns their bread and it stinks up this whole section of the airport!"

I put my Ipod headphones on and sat a distance away so I could hum along. Nothing sounded good, and I started to get a little cranky. Then I realized that my humming voice sort of sounded like a someone splatting harshly into tuba. Even being on key with the melody, it still sounded like a tuba in my ears--Who wants to hear the tuba rendition of songs by Sheryl Crow, Neil Young, or Led Zeppelin? It made me sad, and then I couldn't turn off the humming voice, even when I wasn't humming. I might be ruined for life.

Over twenty hours and 1700 miles elapsed, I was home again with new stories to tell...