I’m posting this picture from Dallas, not for any photographic value, because there isn’t any, but rather to relate the story of Tim’s latest trip overseas.

He was scheduled to fly from DC to Dallas to Tokyo for a dinner on Tuesday night and meeting on Wednesday morning. He got up at 3 a.m. to get to Dulles Airport in Virginia for a 6:45 a.m. flight to Dallas. When all the passengers were on the plane, they started to refuel it, the timing of which was a mystery since it had been sitting at the gate for at least an hour. The pilot then announced that the fuel truck was broken so they had to wait for another. After the refueling was finished, a tractor started to pull them away from the gate, when the pilot announced that the tractor was broken and that they had to wait for a replacement. He said over the intercom that he had never seen anything like this in his entire career. The aircraft also had to be de-iced due to below-freezing temperatures that morning, so yet another delay.

The plane finally took off at 9:21 a.m., two and a half hours later than scheduled (although the flight notice online claims it departed at 8:16 a.m.) Tim, of course, had missed his connecting flight to Narita and thus his dinner and meeting, and despite all efforts on the part of the travel agent, there was no way for him to leave for Tokyo from anywhere on the West Coast until the next day. American Airlines put him up in some dumpy hotel near the other airport in Dallas, a 20-minute drive from Dallas/Fort Worth. The hotel didn’t serve lunch, so he found some tuna and crackers across the street (he was desperate since he hadn’t had breakfast or lunch). He went out for a walk in search of pictures but said there was absolutely nothing to photograph in the area, thus this shot from the hotel, of a very flat and spread-out Dallas. The fallout from not getting to Tokyo for the meeting is more serious than I’m explaining, but suffice to say it also affects the rest of the trip to two more countries.

I told Tim if I were him, I'd file a complaint with the FAA about the unacceptable situation at Dulles. That is simply no way to run an airport.

Best to view in "Original" because other versions resized by PBase are decidedly unsharp.

Mural or decoration? posted earlier: