To XNA on NW, CO
 

Prelude on FL

FL 811 BOS BWI 1746 2010 717 2F
was 800 BOS BWI 1848 2019 717 11A

Bunch o' weather up and down the east coast this day.

My plane was delayed (for some reason they knew this early
in the morning), so I got on the earlier flight, which
ended up being kind of delayed as well, so my arrival was
just about what I'd contracted for, which is good.

Sat next to an agreeable young woman whose Delta flight had
been cancelled. Agreeable, that is, except for the fact that
she worked for an on-line advertising concern. When flying
this airline I generally enjoy the XM entertainment; this
time chatting with my seatmate took the whole flight.

The brunette flight attendant, as the captain reported on
the PA, was shortly to leave for Dancing with the Stars,
where she would exercise her skills at the lambada and was
to partner Regis Philbin, something like that. The flight
and landing were pretty bumpy; as we entered the terminal,
we heard announcements giving instructions for passengers
of "Continental Airlines diverted flight 485," so life
could be worse.

To XNA
NW 291 IAD DTW 0921 1105 D93 3D

Premium security at IAD took about 3 minutes, all told, so
I had an hour at the WorldClub to do FT and an experiment
involving tomato juice and beer, inspired by a thread on the
US forum regarding interesting drinks that can be made from
the limited selection of adult ingredients catered by that
airline (tomato juice and beer, if more juice, seems to me
more like a cold soup than a drink; if more beer, not so
good). Moseyed to the gate next door to see a line and no
motions toward boarding, so I wandered around for another 5;
when I got back, the red carpet was empty, the Skyteam
elites knowing more about the overhead space on the DC9
than I did. Had a tough time finding room for my carryon.

Ugly dirty equipment with some of the worst F seat pitch
I've ever seen, either compounded, depending on your point
of view, or mitigated by the fact that recline is some of
the paltriest I've encountered.

The guy next to me looked like an ex-athlete gone to seed
and appeared uncomfortable, even while using the whole
armrest for his arm and most of the middle underseat storage
for his legs. I was glad for once that I am not BIG.

We took off half an hour late owing to a fault in the FO's
communications gear not being fixed in a timely way, itself
owing to the maintenance guy's having showed up with the
wrong tools.

The FA serving us was somewhere between the worst possible
US or UA crew and a horseman of the Apocalypse. After she
snatched my overcoat from me, wordlessly, I decided to tune
her out and slept through the flight. We landed 20 late; I
hurried by but not without thanking the FA. She looked at
me stonily. I wondered if she had been jilted by me thirty
or forty years ago or something.

A bit of a sprint from gate 23 toward gate 66 (at landing
time our nasty FA had made one gate announcement only,
Memphis at gate 66). Luckily I checked a monitor on the
way: gate 51. I toyed with the paranoid notion that she'd
made her solitary announcement with the desired effect of
stranding me in beautiful Wayne County Metropolitan Airport.

At the proper gate they were using the red carpet for
general boarding. Huffing and puffing from the exercise,
I went to the regular carpet and skipped the line.

NW 283 DTW MEM 1155 1254 D93 2D

This had been scheduled as a 95, and so the general boarding
rubishness was compounded by people with assignments in rows
22-25 wandering around lost, as as I understand row 21 is
the last on the shrunk version of the DC9. Again, I had a
tough time finding room for my carryon. We took off on time.

My seatmate was an extremely taciturn young man, whose only
communication with the FA was the word "diet," said several
times with gradations of annoyance depending on whether she
figured out what he said or not. "Diet" meant Diet Pepsi.

I asked for a Courvoisier, and the cheery FA (complete
contrast to the previous one) opined that there wasn't any.
I implored her to look, as my tooth was hurting something
awful. She came back with the magic elixir, calling herself
a big fat liar (all false - she was medium-size, pleasingly
plump, and "lie" is a funny term). Pistachio nut mix is a
step up from most of the King Nut offerings; it's not so
fine as UA's (occasionally offered) macadamia-laced mixed
nuts, but it's better than mini pretzels, supreme nut mix,
cranberry nut mix, or a sharp stick in the eye. We landed
15 early, so I had time to enjoy the actually quite nice
WorldClub for a while before succumbing to the aroma of BBQ
that wafts throughout this airport. My connection, formerly
scheduled out of A6, was moved to the B pier right next to
Interstate, where the brisket was good, way better than
anything the airport Corky's offers.

NW5777 MEM XNA 1430 1545 CRJ 2A

Pleasant (given one's lowered expectations for Airlink
service) shortish (under an hour) flight. We took off a
tad late and landed a tad early. The Courvoisier here was
VS only but welcome nevertheless. Good FA.

Things eaten in Arkansas

Boat Dock Cafe, Prairie Creek, AR - my friend Ella wanted
to go for a ride, and I nixed Eureka Springs, as I hate
cutesy shopping places, so we went down to Beaver Lake,
which is mighty scenic, plus there's this quaint floating
restaurant. We doubted that it would be open - usually it
opens April Fool's, but in fact it was serving lunch only.
We inquired, and it turned out that this year they decided
to open a month early "to cross everyone up." Ella had a
very large turkey club - this comes with chips or fries,
but for a buck extra you can get onion rings, which are
pretty good. I got Frito pah, which unfortunately didn't
come in a Frito bag but in a bowl: other than that, the
Fritos are fresh, the chili though mild was quite palatable
and had no beans, and the onions and shredded cheese came
on the side and not on top. You come to this place not for
the food exactly - it's wholesome but not very notable -
but for the fun of eating on a big old houseboat and
feeding your leftovers (I used the shredded cheese for this
purpose) to the enormous carp that hang around in the lake
expecting handouts. And also the pah. Ella had a slice of
chocolate, which was quite nice, not too too sweet, and I
had coconut cream, good but somehow the cream part tasted
like bananas (I bet that banana cream was being made the
same day).

Village Inn, Bentonville, AR - with Ella and Kenneth and
Faye. They had big plates of eggs and bacon and waffles
and pancakes and stuff, none of which except the bacon I
can tolerate much of. I had two pieces of pah - pecan,
fairly good for a commercial product, but my mother's was
much better, and coconut cream, which was different and
potentially better than that at the Boat Dock - the
custard was a regular custard (vanilla flavored rather
than coconut) topped with whipped cream (stale and tasting
of refrigerator, the main downgrade factor) and a handful
of toasted coconut shavings. After this meal I went into a
frank diabetic attack; in retrospect I should have had
a slice of pecan and a half slice of coconut, which would
have been my limit (they sell slices for $3 to $4 and
half slices for $2.50 to $3).

Kobe, Fayetteville, AR - with the conductor Lars or whatever
his name is, the music director Jeannine, the soloist
Shannon Lee, and a dozen or so other select orchestra
members and friends. It's a tradition that I take my buddy
Umiker to lunch between the rehearsal and the concert, but
Holly the concertmaster (this is the only group I currently
play in that I'm not concertmaster of - a bit of a trick,
as normally I'm a violist) asked me to lunch, so I told
Bob to tag along and I'd pay. It is, as it turns out, a
hibachi place. The kid doing the honors said he'd never had
such a big group all by himself - he had to deal with two
grills at once. He was clearly domestic and spoke with a
California accent but was fairly skillful and showmanlike
nonetheless. I had a large Fat Tire, which probably didn't
endear me to the conductor people but which Holly nodded
approvingly at, followed by the sirloin, about a 4 oz cut
done rare as ordered and then chopped up into a dozen little
pieces. Fried rice (okay) and grilled vegetables (nicely
done but as the luck of the draw would have it my portion
was mostly zucchini - I saw others' having broccoli,
carrots, onions, things that I would eat) came with.
Umiker had a piece of salmon that was maybe twice as big
as my meal for the same price. This was my first Benihana-
type experience. It was amusing. The food was better than
I'd feared.

Now that's funny :D

Another great trip report and dining review. Thanks for sharing! ^

After a week of music, it was back to the airport. Security
was less of a snap than usual owing to my having a pint of
chili powder, which X-ray the girl interpreted as liquid
(she was doing her screening as she did her coiffure). I
joked around with the other agents while she reran the
chili powder separately (while she put her lipstick on);
got a bemused sort of semiexplanation from one of them.

I was hoping to escape before a line of thunderstorms went
through - 2 hours on a RJ not appealing to me even in the
best of conditions, and being tossed about by the weather,
no, thank you. The inbound was 20 minutes late - not a big
thing except that one could see the storm about to roll in.
Luckily we weren't delayed further than that, and we got out
before the rains started in earnest.

CO2878 XNA EWR 1010 1359 ER4 4A

The computer had assigned me 1A, which would be okay but for
the lack of storage space, so I hustled my bustle to the CO
website, which refused to let me do anything about it, the
seatmaps being zeroed out except at the very back of the
aircraft. On checkin, though, it turned out that this was a
fairly empty flight (empty enough so they cleared standbys
an hour before departure).

Bumpy flight. Snack box - Sparrer beef salami, Rondele
Parmesan peppercorn cheese spread, Carr's water crackers,
Power Snacks sweet trail mix, M&Ms fun size. Amazing how
a buck or two outlay can make people happy - other than
this snack box, I think the service on this flight was
no better - perhaps a touch more surly - than other
carriers' express flights, but I got the feeling people
were enjoying themselves.

Our inbound had been delayed by 20 by headwinds; given the
airline version of Murphy's law, though, our arrival was not
expedited by 20 - in fact, we were delayed an additional
few minutes, which gave me not too much time to get from
terminal C to terminal A ... but when I got to gate 71 a
somewhat sullen but reasonably efficient shuttle guard gave
me the news that my connection was 45 min late. As the buses
were not quite so frequent as advertised, a bit of delay was
somewhat welcome. Eventually the bus showed up, and I had
half an hour in the PC, where the wireless was on the fritz
but the drinks flowed free.

CO1111 EWR DCA 1505 1619 735 14A

Scored the famous infinite legroom seat on this one and
stretched out for a little snooze that lasted until the
FA came by and asked me to put my seat up for landing.
Most satisfactory. We landed a hair later than expected.

I'd thought the PC was in the parallel location to the RCC
and the US Club, but I was wrong. The Crown Room is there,
and so I took advantage of that. They pour a particularly
nasty Merlot, and the wireless isn't free. Staff was nice.

=

My brother wanted to go out to dinner, so I picked Grapeseed
in Bethesda on what has become a big old restaurant row,
Cordell Avenue. It's pretty fashionable and was quite busy
on a weekday night. The advantage for me was that it has a
good selection of wines by the glass and the half glass, and
the advantage for my brother is it has a young hip clientele
including a large proportion of attractive women.

The bread basket showed a decent fresh sourdough boule
served with a dipping sauce of tomato, garlic, and oil. An
auspicious start.

Ehrhardt Herrenweg Gewurztraminer was a very nice aperitif,
just off dry and very spicy and tropical fruitish.

I got three appetizers; Jonathan was planning to do a normal
meal, only upon hearing what I was going to do, he decided
to "join" me with a second appetizer. He's a bit of a swine
anyway, but he's a real pig when someone else is paying.

For starters I had grilled quail with piment d'espelette,
blood orange, and Marcona almonds. All the ingredients were
impeccable, and the preparation and presentation were nice.
The quail was done pink in the middle the way I asked. The
main quibble was that for $12 I should have got more than
2 tiny quail. I know a place that charges half that for two.
With this I had a half glass of Vina Alberdi Rioja Rosan
2000, a moderately tannic, quite smooth, coffeeish pleasant
wine. My brother had a bowl of bean soup, which I didn't
investigate - this cost $8.

Second course: deep-fried chicken livers. I ordered mine
rare, and they came rare, three big roaster livers, browned
outside and creamy inside, just perfect, atop croutons. The
sauce was sort of silly - essentially jalapeno pepper jelly
melted down and thinned a little. The suggested wine with
this, Rosenblum Heritage Old Vines Petite Syrah, was way
too sweet by itself but matched well with the dish. My
brother's came medium-well, as he requested, the philistine.

Next, I had mussels in lambic, which was a quart of very
nice though insufficiently debearded shellfish, in a quite
nice sauce of beer, smoky bacon, and (the menu didn't say
this) cream. With this I had a Sam, which went perfectly.
Jonathan's lamb shank was creditable but nothing special;
it was from a baby lamb, which means that 1. it didn't taste
like much and 2. normal restaurants give you two of them.

Service was unobtrusive, attentive, and excellently paced:
Jonathan thought it was slow and was extremely surprised to
find that we had gotten out in an hour and half.

Sad to relate, our next concert, featuring Viktor Valkov, a charismatic
Bulgarian pianist, has been cancelled - we knew something was up
when the new chairman of the board announced after a rehearsal
for the last concert that the rest of the season would take place
intact. Pity - it was a fun program - Pictures and the St.-Saens 4th.