28 February 2014 Visiting Salt Lake City

Delta always seems to have issues in Minneapolis. This morning I arrived at Spokane Airport to a long line at the counter. A quick glance at the departure board showed bad news. I was supposed to he home in Northeast Ohio by 10:30. I hadn't reached the counter and already knew my Friday arrival wasn't going to happen. When I got to the counter, I was told Delta didn't have a jet so the Minneapolis flight wasn't going to be late. It wasn't going to happen.

The person at the check-in counter was amazing. She found me a way home using a red-eye through Salt Lake City and Detroit. I wouldn't be home Friday evening, but with a littl luck I could make it home early Saturday morning. I jumped at this option. The only "drawback" was over seven hours layover in Salt Lake City.

I spent some of my layover time wishing I could leave the airport and head into the mountains for a few finds. After longing for some Utah geocaching and eating a burger at an airport restaurant which thankfully didn't kill me, there was little left to do but wander the terminal and look for things to photograph.

Need Help?

This is the first time I've seen an emergency-gurney, golf cart tucked away like this.

Salt Lake City's airport had a couple of throwbacks making me check my cell phone calendar to be certain I hadn't slipped back twenty years. The first was this pay phone kiosk. It's a lot of real estate trapped in the past.

My second look back to the past was the smoking room below. It had been years since I last sighted one of these at the airport in Phoenix. At that time, I thought that one was antiquated. I walked past this a few times over a roughly two-hour period. I was surprised to see the same guy in the same seat each time I went past. He was never smoking, just sitting back and slowly inhaling carcinogens created by others. Maybe there were some deep feelings of guilt that kept him seated in that room breathing cigarette smoke for hours. I felt sorry for the person sitting next to him on his flight.

At long last, I was on the plane. I always think it's sort of funny that Delta thinks these lap napkins are "blankets".