Travelin' Monty

I am pleased to report that airplanes are still flying. And while there might be fewer people traveling, you couldn't tell that from my Denver-to-Minneapolis leg, which featured an absolutely packed jet. Except for the heightened security measures, it was almost the same as air travel used to be. You know. "Before".

One difference was that when the flight attendants thanked the passengers for flying United, they sounded a lot more sincere.

So now I'm in glamorous Minneapolis, which would rhyme if I was talking like Elmer Fudd. There are a few sights I want to see, mostly bookstores. And the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, which sounds like some wild, if disturbing, fun. I hope there's a gift shop, so I can own my very own head-drilling device.

I did get to see some of the Twin Cities and their three hundred suburbs tonight, thanks to the help of Laurel Krahn. Mostly what I saw was the area immediately around my hotel, the inside of a Perkins, and some lakes at night. They might have been all the same lake; it's kind of hard to tell the difference.

It's not Laurel's fault that my first night in Minnesota was low on the sightseeing scale; by the time I was recovered from my flight (during which I discovered that I can, in fact, sleep on an airplane, if I don't mind waking up fifteen minutes later with a tremendously painful neck), most of the local commercial establishments were closed. And because I am an American, I'm more interested in seeing the freakishly large Mall of America than in seeing, um, I don't know, the Spires of Majestic Beauty.

Okay, I made up the Spires of Majestic Beauty. But my point is that most of the things that were on my list turned out to be closed, so it's not Laurel's fault if my mental checklist remains largely unchecked. I did get to see part of Hopkins, the home of the old MST3K Info Club PO box. I was inordinately pleased by this, even though I didn't see the actual box.

While I was on the airplane (by the way, I realize that I'm jumping around a bit, but I choose to blame that on jet lag), I noticed in the Inflight Magazine a set of exercises designed for people who get leg cramps while sitting in airplane seats. One of them involved extending your legs as far in front of you as they go; I have to assume that whoever designed these exercises has never actually been on an airplane, since if I could extend my legs in front of me, I wouldn't be cramping up!

One more thing. My hotel room has cable, and it feels strange being in the Central time zone where all the shows are an hour earlier than normal. Letterman at 10:35? Freaky.