Alps 2024 — In Transit

Today’s my big travel day. I splurged and found a great flight to Stuttgart out of Madison through Atlanta. This, in lieu of our typical bus trip to O’Hare followed by a long flight from there, which would probably have put me into Frankfurt too. That wouldn’t have been quite as convenient.

Yesterday I finished packing everything up and got the bike bag down to 50 lbs exactly, at least as near as I could tell with a standard digital human scale. I had to remove some items such as my seatpost/seat (into my carry-on it goes) and a bunch of liquids (will pick up German equivalents at the other end) but it wasn’t too difficult.

The Madison airport is a luxury. Having been there twice in two days (yesterday I dropped Harald off), it’s about as calm of an experience as you can have. Liz took the morning to see me off, and we stopped to pick up a few things that slipped through Harald’s net the morning before. It pays to travel a bit staggered, although if I forget anything I’ll have to find it in Germany. I’m the caboose!

After a few tears from both Liz and myself, I rolled my bike up to the counter and checked in. The scale read 51 lbs but the counter agent said no need to panic, that’s within the margin of error. I was ready with ideas on what to take out if necessary but I was happy not to need to do so! $100 fee is avoided, this time!

The security check was fine and also luxurious by our usual standards of O’Hare. Every time we go through it’s a different procedure, probably because we do so infrequently. A half dozen random small electronic devices and strange metal bike parts? “Keep ’em in the bag!” Peanut butter sandwich? It gets its own bin. Go figure!

On the other side of security I found some moments of tranquility.

It was an uneventful flight to Atlanta. I got to ride the train between C and E concourse. I ate my peanut butter sandwich. Topped up all my devices. Got a few hours of plane watching in…

… and it’s time to board! Next post will be from Germany!