Direct Flight to Vinden-Franklin

When we get to Vinden-Franklin, we will go to the seafood restaurant near Terminal 8 and see if Sharon is working. Sharon is the best waitress at the seafood restaurant, which we can never remember the name of. We could look it up, but we don’t need to, because we know exactly where it is, and we know that Sharon works six days a week, because she’s always picking up overtime shifts, because her daughter is in her last year at Temple, and she’s helping her with tuition. Our biggest fear is not that Sharon will not be working, because Will is a great waiter and if Sharon isn’t there, Will probably will be. Our biggest fear is that the restaurant will be closed. Airport restaurants close more often than one would think. Our favorite taco place at LAX closed after eight years. One day, we got off the plane, excited for carne asada, and we walked up to the taco place--the name of it escapes us--and it had closed down. There was an Express Spa in its place. Airports are no different than the rest of the world. Businesses come and go.

Well, that’s not true.

Airports are not like the rest of the world.

They’re much better.

So much activity and stimulation and lights and people and coming and going. Once, we went to Vegas, and that was sort of like one big airport, but then someone near the Bellagio offered us cocaine--right there on the street!--and we decided we wanted to go back to the airport. Ever since then, we don’t even bother trying to visit actual places. We just stick to the airports.

After booking a flight, we arrive, and spend a day or two walking around, eating, shopping, and sleeping on chairs in whichever terminal seems the coziest. Nobody finds it strange when they see people sleeping in an airport. Flights are delayed or cancelled all the time, and people have to sleep. We love sleeping at Terminal 48 at the Duluth International Airport. It’s set back from the rest of the airport, and very few flights come through that particular terminal, so we usually have the whole place to ourselves.

Traveling only to airports may seem strange to some people, but that’s only because some people fail to think about the perks. We never have to pay for a hotel room. We’re guaranteed good weather, because we never step outside. We get to meet all kinds of interesting people--some of whom are grumpy, because they’re stranded, but even then, they’re still intriguing. We get to eat at all kinds of restaurants and compare the prices of headphones. (Did you know that the Will Rogers airport in Oklahoma City has the cheapest wireless headphones in the entire country?)

Our favorite airport is Vinden-Franklin. It’s not the largest, but it has the most heart. We stumbled upon it by accident when we were rerouted from Columbus. Our goal was to go to all the major airports in the country, but based on how long that would take (we still haven’t hit them all) we never imagined we’d get to any of the smaller ones. Labeling Vinden-Franklin as small might not be totally accurate. Perhaps a better classification for it would be…mid-sized. None of that really matters anyway. What matters is that it has the best seafood restaurant with the best service and the best lobster rolls despite it being in a land-locked state.

Vinden-Franklin has the best terminals. They all give off the vibe of a cabin because of the faux wood floors and the extra-large chairs. Some of them have fake fireplaces going. The bathrooms are always pristine and the lighting is excellent for taking photos of yourself that you can post online. Just ignore the comments that ask why you’re at yet another airport. You don’t need that kind of nosiness stuck in your head while you’re trying to enjoy your favorite airport. The to-go sandwiches are always fresh. The security guards are very nice. Ben J. is the best. He’s been working there for five years, and he hopes to one day open up his own hot air balloon company. We always tell him to keep dreaming, which, ironically, sounds like something you would put on an inspirational poster with a hot air balloon on it.

We’re on our way to Vinden-Franklin now, because we hear there’s going to be a blizzard there tomorrow. We want to get stranded in the airport. There’s nothing better than cuddling up under a blanket in either Terminal 2 or 3 in the Vinden-Franklin airport watching the snowfall on the runway. Unfortunately, we didn’t check the weather when we decided to catch a flight from JFK, and there’s a pretty bad storm here that has us worried we’ll miss the blizzard entirely. How strange to be stranded at one airport while you’re attempting to get stranded at another one.

Over the years, we’ve talked about taking a real vacation. Not to Vegas, but somewhere else. To an island in the Caribbean or a vineyard in Italy or to Tokyo where they allegedly have world-class sushi in most of their airports. The truth is, vacations are always hit-or-miss. There are always so many things that could go wrong. Lost luggage. Food poisoning from unfamiliar cuisine. Staying in one of those hostels that are secretly torture chambers. It seems silly to save your money and take days off work to roll the dice on what might end up being a disaster.

We find it makes more sense to stick to what works. Airports work. Oh sure, they don’t always do what they’re meant to do. Planes don’t leave on time, or at all. People yell at the staff behind the counters. Sometimes nobody is talking to anybody and toddlers are screaming and some man is confessing to his wife that he never wanted to go visit her mother in Chicago anyway. All that can damper your day if you’re at the airport to get to somewhere else. For us, that’s not a problem. We’re in the airport, because we want to be in the airport. As a place to be, it’s hard to beat.

Once you turn the place on the way to your destination into the destination itself, you’ll find that all of your flights are right on time.