Ch 2-1 On Our Way - Escape from Detroit Airport

By the time we reached our destination we’d see four airports and pass through two additional countries. Seeing airports in close succession makes the differences all the more striking.  At least the time change will work in our favor this trip, leaving in the afternoon and arriving in Lithuania late in the evening. We can get a night's sleep before starting the new day in a foreing land.

As we lived in Michigan it made sense to fly out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  Chicago’s O’Hare is about the same flight distance, but there's lot more road traffic getting there and flight connections no better.  around Chicago to get there.  Metro airport is under construction yet again so inside was a construction zone with much of the terminal blocked off.  We spared our relatives having to come see us off; none of them wanted along anyway.  They are very reticent about their German ancestry, actually in denial. 

Trying to find something to eat proved a challenge. A vegetarian I've lost interest in most food places, but these options set new lows for anything edible. It was going to be a long day of sitting and wanted a light meal. Lots of traveI but I rarely find anything edible in U.S. airport. 

I recall that Detroit got an award for having the fattest U.S. inhabitants.  I now know why.  Looking around at the menus and people I see why. Sullen mounds of flesh in polyester behind counters do their best to deter customers.  Doesn't work as zombie like lines of people wait for their infusion of high corn syrup and cholesterol. After a long search through this maze we find something suitable. I rush to the counter to wake up a staff person.  The rush was short lived - they were out of it!  At the other fast foods places staff was so slovenly dressed in grimy uniforms I was too disgusted to even try.  We settled on a beverage.  While we sat at a tiny table we observed the crowd shuffling along, dragging untied shoelaces of oversized athletic shoes, pants hanging low, not a good haircut in sight.  Flashback to George Romero's film with the zombies trudging through the mall.

Turns out we were fortunate not to have eaten anything when we become aware of the restroom situation: a bathroom so filthy as to be unusable. I actually wanted to get on the plane in order to use that restroom.  Here is the kicker – outside the filthy bathroom stood an attendant leaning immobile on her utility cart. When can we board and escape this purgatory.   It's a real downer to the start of a trip for which we have such great anticipation.

So why am I putting myself through this torture of airports and cramped airplanes, countless waits, running for shuttles, travel with an elderly mother, crammed into uncomfortable and inhumanely tight seats risking blood clots, airborne diseases and other unanticipated horrors?  I am taking my mother back home, to see where she spent her youth, attended school, moved to the city, explored, experienced, met and married her husband. Finding my roots.