June 10 - St. Louis to Albuquerque

I had a rather uneventful trip on Southwest Airlines from St. Louis to Albuquerque. This was my first trip on Southwest so it was my first encounter with Lambert airport's east terminal. I thought the guy driving the shuttle was going to take me to Illinois....but it all worked out.

The check-in and security operation was fairly painless. I recently read that the airport security check is actually a "ceremony of control" because it really doesn't have much of a bearing on real security. It has the purpose of giving passengers the illusion of security and imposing a level of control. They apparently thought my CPAP was a dangerous object and wiped it down with ionizer swabs looking for explosives (didn't find any). They did this while I was hopping around on one foot trying to get my shoes off. Later I discovered that my duffel bag with my fishing gear was inspected by the Federal Transportation Administration. They put a note in the duffel in two languages explaining what they did. That's fine with me...nothing is missing and it looks the same as I packed it.

The flight was nice. I actually saw Jefferson City and Lake of the Ozarks. There is not a lot of interesting stuff to see otherwise until you get to New Mexico. The approach to Albuquerque had our full attention since it was windy and they have to fly around some mountains and do a hair-pin turn to line up with the runway....it was pretty bouncy by my standards but the local passengers said it was nothing. Hmmm.

Albuquerque's Sunport is a nice airport but it takes a lot of walking to get to the baggage area and then a shuttle to get to the off-site car rental desks...and they are all off-site at a special rental facility. It worked slick enough...just a little confusing as a new experience. I got my rental (a Cobalt) and got to my motel. This is the same place I stayed before so I know the neighborhood.

Well it was 93 degrees here and 5% humidity and a pretty afternoon. It didn't seem very windy once I was on the ground. I decided to chill out a little and then went to get some food and groceries. The motel has a kitchen so I'll do my own breakfasts and some suppers. I talked with the contractor's assistant already so we are on track there. I still need to talk to the mortgage people...I had to leave a message there.

Before I got my groceries I decided to have supper and to sample some of the international fare they have here so I went to a local Weinerschnitzel and ate a chili dog. They have a bunch of unusual (to me) fast food chains. The Weinerschnitzel was only a little larger than a phone booth. Whataburger is really huge here but I've never tried it. There seems to be a Whataburger on most major streets and sometimes only a couple blocks apart. As you would guess there are a number of Mexican food places but I'm not sure if they are chains. There are also the usual places -- Wendys, Arbys, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, etc. Weinerschnitzel is the worlds largest hot dog chain and their slogan is "Pushing the boundaries of taste". I think it is an open question on the direction they are pushing the boundaries but I liked the chili dog so maybe they are ok.

That's it for today. No pictures but I'll make up for that.

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