The only thing harder than saying goodbye to Lynette at the airport yesterday was getting up at 7:30 in the morning to drive her there—it's an hour or so from here by interstate.Except for the few pre-DIA years that I lived in Denver, I've always lived an hour from the airport. In California I had to confront the LA freeways, which, really, was no fun at all at any time of day, but especially trying early in the morning. Due to traffic, I often had to leave four hours early so that I could spend at least two of them sitting at a standstill at the junction of the 101 and 405 freeways. Fortunately, I haven't lived there since 1999, so I never had to add the time for TSA security checks. I imagine these days one would have to leave Ventura at midnight for a 10:00 am flight...
Denver was great until they built DIA. The old Stapleton airport was a mere six miles from my doorstep and when someone called from the airport to say they'd arrived, I could truthfully reply, "I'll be there in a few minutes." But when DIA opened in 1995, I was back to commuting through city traffic. It was only 30 miles from my house. Not too bad, but Stapleton was better. We had a lot of fun with that airport.
Besides the fact that one of the runways went directly over I-70, there was also Havana Road that lay at the beginning of the other runway. One of the things Denverites loved to do (myself included) was to park out there, then lay on the hood of the car while the jets came in to land. They were so close you could feel the hot blast of air from their engines and see inside their landing gear hatches. I spent many lunch hours doing that when I worked only a mile from the airport.Anyway, Nettl is now in Bordeaux, drinking wine and eating strawberries the size of tangerines whilst I'm doing exactly what I knew I'd be doing: helping the cat adjust and trying to find some shred of a schedule for myself. The days could so easily drift into nights and back again without my noticing. Not at all bad, mind you, but I go to seed so easily, and we've had so much rain lately that I could do so in record time.
