I know Baltimore is known for their excellent crabcakes, and I was fortunate enough to get one during my trip there last weekend, but there were distracting moments.
Of course it was Thanksgiving weekend, and before anything, I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving. I know our weather was nothing compared to lots of places around the nation. I had at least a half-dozen family members back in the Dakotas or Minnesota that had to change or cancel travel plans because they ended up with around a foot of snow through two storms.
But Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel period in the nation in the year, and it impacted my timing as much as anything.
Both the flight to and from Baltimore that I wanted to take were sold out, so alternate flights had to be taken. It meant going out later on Saturday, which didn’t impact me much, and coming back much later on Sunday night.
That one got me.
I had two poor options Sunday after a great game in the afternoon.
I could hop on three different airlines and fly to a hub city, and then make a late connection to Indy. With the holiday and it being Sunday, and having flown through Atlanta, Charlotte, O’Hare and Detroit on that exact night, I wanted nothing to do with any of them.
So, I opted to wait for the last non-stop flight,which didn’t leave until 10:30. The timing was the same – if I connected through anywhere or flew direct, I was landing at midnight, so that didn’t matter.
Well, with all the awful weather north and west of everywhere, I first might not have gotten to Detroit or Chicago. Next, with all the delays, the hubs would be chaos waiting for late planes.
As it was, my flight was over an hour late leaving Baltimore, so it was about 2 in the morning by the time I got back.
But, I did get back.
On board, I managed to run afoul of a rule.
I was way in the back, and had turned my phone, through an app, into a TV, and was watching the fourth quarter of the Sunday night game.
In the back of the plane, there is plenty of noise from the engines just ahead, so I tried to listen to the announcers a bit. I did not have the volume turned up much, trying to be nice to the folks around me. I held the phone up to an ear to try and hear, but wasn’t having much luck.
Then, a flight attendant came and told me that I could only listen if I had ear-phones, and that my phone was too loud.
I had to ask him to repeat himself because the engine noise was so loud, I couldn’t hear him!
I understand the rule, but it seemed silly that the plane was making more noise than all the phones on the plane could have equaled and he was asking me to tone it down.
I’m old, and somewhat hard of hearing, but not to that level...
But, I turned the sound off, and watched the end of the game in my solitude. I made sure not to crunch my ice for fear of breaking another decibel rule.
It was also very wet and very chilly in Baltimore, but thankfully the snow stayed about 75 miles north.
That didn’t stop us from getting a bit wet dashing from security spot to spot.
Baltimore is not a regular stop for the Fox crews, so no one was aware of the new security rules in place at the stadium. It had been at least two years since I had last been there, and they changed a bunch of stuff like instead of letting us take a direct route from the security booth at the parking lot that we used down a short ramp to the production trucks, we had to walk halfway back down the stadium and use an entrance that was both crowded and uncovered. Lots of folks getting wet.
And of course, when the first of us got there early Sunday the list of Fox crew folks was no place to be found, and we ended up having to get lots of bosses involved to find that list.
It did get taken care of but why do they have to make it more difficult each and every time?
Oh well...
I was at Illinois Monday and at Notre Dame last night, so I got a dose of college hoops. I also went to Rockville Tuesday and head to Covington tonight for some high school action.
Friday it’s back to the airport, and a trip to the new New Orleans airport awaits. I can only imagine what last weekend was like for them and their first holiday.
We have another top-shelf game, which helps make it all worthwhile.
I hope everyone is having good luck with their Christmas shopping!
Safe travels.
Jeff Nelson works in national television. His column appears each Thursday in the Journal Review.
