My trip out of Ticonderoga wasn’t any easier than getting to Ticonderoga. Folks will recall that I came to Ticonderoga to see the Star Trek Set Tour there.
When I planned this trip, my idea was that I’d go from Ticonderoga to Boston. The internet told me that this would require either a multi-day effort on trains/buses or I could take a taxi 60 miles to the Rutland (Vermont) airport and then fly to Boston. I chose the latter.
Of course, this was before I learned that Uber and Lyft don’t operate in Ticonderoga and that the sole taxi company in town has a whopping two cars.
When I inquired with the taxi company, they quoted an enormous price to get to Rutland, but I had no choice; I took it. Then I went on Uber and Lyft on the off chance that somebody might take me up on an advance reservation. To my pleasant surprise, a guy named Fred accepted the ride — and for nearly half the price of the taxi company. I was rather happy about that.
On Wednesday morning, I opened up my Lyft app to discover that Fred had disappeared. For whatever reason, he had cancelled the job. Dang. Back to the taxi company.
It’s 11am and my flight is at 4pm in Rutland, an hour’s drive away. The taxi company tells me that her other driver is on his way to Albany and likely won’t be back until 1pm. Can’t you take me? No, she says, she has to stay available for local trips. I sigh and settle in to wait until 1pm. I have lunch at McDonald’s (because it’s the only restaurant within walking distance of my hotel), and read a book while sitting on their hard seats.
At 1:30pm, I call again. She says traffic has been bad in the Albany area but the driver should be back around 2pm. That has me arriving only an hour before my flight, but it’s a small airport so I figure that should be OK.
No taxi at 2pm. Finally, at 2:30pm, he arrives — and he has to gas up before we can leave. I’m now nervously checking my watch. I’ll arrive with only 20 minutes to spare before the flight is due to depart and it’s the last flight of the day.
The driver speeds down the highway. Without saying anything to me, it appears that he shares my sense of urgency. We pull up in front of the airport at 3:35pm. I hustle into the terminal to find the only ticket counter agent is helping some woman from a previous flight who appears to have missed her luggage.
I assume that everyone around me has already checked in and I’m the last one, but that was incorrect. Because of the lady with the lost luggage, nobody has checked in. That’s a relief, though, the plane won’t be leaving without me. I don’t care if it’s departing late.
I’m the only one who checks a bag. There are 7 passengers, two pilots, and a third gentleman wearing a pilot’s uniform. Everybody else has carry-on luggage, which really becomes tail-of-the-plane luggage because this small plane has no room in the passenger area for baggage. I find out later that it’s a Tecnam P2012 twin-engine plane. What I know at the time is that it’s the smallest commercial aircraft that I’ve flown since I left the Army more than four decades ago.
But the flight goes smoothly and we arrive at Logan Airport in Boston without incident. When we’re let out of the plane, everyone receives their luggage except me. Hey, how about my bag? Oh, you checked yours. For “security reasons”, it has to be delivered to baggage claim instead of directly to me on the tarmac.
Oh well, it’s only one plane and it’s only about 40 yards from the building. I go inside and head for baggage claim, and wait. And wait. No luggage.
There’s a sign by baggage claim that if you don’t see your luggage after 15-20 minutes, to go up to the Cape Air check-in desk upstairs and inquire there. How can it be lost? It had such a short distance to go. I go upstairs where the agent tells me “oh, it takes some time” and that I should expect it to take 20-30 minutes.
At the 45 minute mark (while I grumble internally that they offload an entire 180+ seat plane in only half an hour), I try going upstairs again. The gate agent is no longer there. I go downstairs and call Cape Air. Their phone is closed for the night. Sigh. I leave a message and assume I’ll see my luggage sometime tomorrow.
Just then, a woman comes up to the baggage claim whose Cape Air plane has just landed. After a few minutes, the door magically lifts and a truck with the lady’s luggage arrives. I ask about mine. He says “it takes a while”. I said it’s been almost an hour now and describe my luggage. For the first time, I encounter someone who actually seems concerned. He says he’ll check for it. A few minutes later, the door lifts again and the gentleman has my luggage. “We’ve been busy,” he smiles apologetically. I’m not in the forgiving mood, knowing how short a distance that bag needed to travel. I gave a brief smile in return, grabbed my bag, and headed to the taxi stand.
Luckily, a taxi is readily available and I arrive at my comfortable hotel room without any undue delay. By this time, I’m starving, so I eat a delicious meal in the hotel’s Cuban restaurant and let out one final sigh — this time, a sigh of relief.
Moral of the story (again): don’t visit Ticonderoga without wheels of your own, and if you fly Cape Air, don’t check your luggage.
