Day 5: Travel Day
Welcome
Yesterday we travelled from Grand Prairie, Texas, to Phoenix, Arizona.
I wanted to show Tess the ropes of a hotel breakfast so I braved the buffet at the Hyatt Place Hotel, serving myself a bowl of sliced melons, grapes, yoghurt, and raisin bran.
It was a pretty cruisy morning for us. A 10:30am lobby call had us arriving at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport before 11am and since I was in command of the van I dropped everyone off to get checked in while I returned our vehicle to the rental depot. Dallas/Forth Worth is the second busiest airport in the world and the road layout reflects this, a complex tangle of overlapping exits and off-ramps that are probably a road planning masterpiece but quite challenging to a first time user.
Once I had returned the van and returned to the airport, we made it through security and were at our gate with two and a half hours to spare. All our equipment was already en route to Phoenix, safely stowed in the back of one of Deathcab for Cutie’s huge cargo trucks, and the process of travelling without a giant inflatable fish and a pile of audio equipment was so simple that we had completely misjudged the amount of time we needed.
It was nearly lunch time by this point, so we set off in search of food, Tess and I deciding to burn up some of our spare minutes by catching the Skylink train to another terminal in the hopes of a better restaurant selection. It was also a great way to take in the view of the airport, the scale of which is completely staggering; 78 square kilometres, 174 gates, seven runways, and over 2000 air operations per day.
The Dallas/Fort Worth Skylink.
Our flight took off at 2:30pm, a brand-new American Airlines Airbus A320 Neo that smelled like it had just come of the production line and was equipped with the latest innovations in passenger entertainment. A flip-out phone stand could be released with the operation of a single clasp so you can now sit your phone at eye level and watch a TV show. Two and a half hours of flight time later and we were touching down onto runway 25R of the Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport, welcomed into this desert city by an abundance of palm trees silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky.
Once we had collected our bags, we headed to the rental car facility which was situated some distance away but conveniently accessible by a short ride aboard the PHX Sky Train. I was in a great mood after my third automated airport rapid transit ride of the day and things only got better when we picked up our rental car, an impressive silver Chevrolet Suburban that slotted nicely into the Beths motorcade.
We had time for a little bit of rest once we had checked into the hotel and then in the evening had the delight of joining some of the members of Deathcab and The Postal Service for a meal, pizza served under the stars at a cosy local restaurant.
There was still an appetite for adventure once we had said our goodbyes, so we stopped for a nightcap at Cobra Arcade Bar on the way to our hotel. A DJ was set up in the corner pumping out some gruff dance music, defying the vibe of the bar which was quiet but ticking along pretty steadily for a Monday night. We sampled many of the arcade games, beginning with some extremely challenging driving simulators and finishing the night with an epic four-player game of Pacman that went on until we had used up every last quarter in our pockets.
