Text 28301, 83 rader
Skriven 2015-06-17 09:32:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: back towards midwest 849
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This was a little early for Gail and Dale to be up and about,
but they were good-natured and got me to the airport in
plenty of time. 

US4767 BWI PHL 1043 1130 DH8 4A

This is one of the shortest flights around, usually running
about 20 minutes; if one wanted to just go to the city
center, it would be easier to take the train for twice as
much money (except when the route is on sale). It is also
a substantially bumpy flight both on climb-out and landing.
For some reason, in my experience, Baltimore, Philly, and
Newark always have bumpy problems. This flight was no
exception.

I escaped to the United Club, where Ten High now reigns as
the house Bourbon, replacing the hated McCormick American
Whiskey, which according to Pete the bartender, is no longer
available in the Pennsylvania state store (which is the
largest of all the state stores, because it has a monopoly
that extends to bars and restaurants as well as the general
public). The good thing of course is that this prevents
United from cheaping out too much on the booze, since some
of the worst products aren't listed.

US1994 PHL ORD 1335 1448 752 3F

I was treated at least as well as a gold or platinum by
pre-merger US Air as I was in the latter days as a high-
status mucky-muck on United. Some of this has persisted to
the present. This aircraft was reconfigured to have just
twelve first-class seats, in electronically-adjustable
angled-lie-flat, followed by a tiny mini-cabin beloved by
golds such as myself even though there is minimal legroom,
followed by the polloi. I think such planes were originally
meant for transatlantic routes of lower demand, and the seats
up front are pretty comfy; I was sad that this flight took
less than two hours,

What happened: not much; I asked for a Bourbon, got a Jack;
found that the footrest was as floppy and broken as all
footrests of this general design; slept an hour; got off
in a relatively unfamiliar part of O'Hare in the drizzle.

Next thing I knew, I was on the shuttle to the Sheraton
O'Hare, where Lilli had wangled a fairly nice suite, lots
of privacy, more from doors than space, for us in what
apparently was a former Embassy Suites.

As it was my birthday (or within a few days thereof), a
special-occasion restaurant was in order. Harry Caray's is
next door in the unlikely setting of what I think is a
Holiday Inn. We were ushered into a corner table in a
clubby-looking small room with a strange piped-in smell of
blue cheese that rather bothered me.

Robert was an officious but not unpleasant waiter; we
actually liked his much older, more efficient, and taciturn
sub-waiter, whose name was not revealed to us.

Canoe Ridge Expedition Horse Heaven Hills Cab 13 was as
advertised and expected, a very fruity, semi-sweet but good-
tasting dark red bottle of juice that went well with
Bill Kurtis' Tallgrass sirloin strip, a firm, somewhat
chewy about 12 oz of grass-fed beef, extra rare as ordered.
I gave Lilli some of this in exchange for half of her
burger, about which I recall nothing. Actually, I recall
little of the beef - the meat itself wasn't that tasty,
though the fat was very nice. Sad to say, most of the fat
had been trimmed off, but the gristle had not. I like
gristle well enough, but burned gristle is nowhere near as
good as burned fat (or nonburned gristle).

Creamed spinach was the crabgrassy sort that I've had before
at second-rate places - it was tough and green-tasting, in a
thin untasty cream sauce.

On the whole, a C+/B- meal, not worth the cost.


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