Prepare yourselves, this will likely be an even longer post than my Nashville topic.
Welp, I’m back from Alpena, MI after spending just under a week up there. I ended up changing my return trip to an earlier ticket because my parents wanted me home sooner to avoid airport traffic.
I’ll split this trip review into two topics. One today, and one tomorrow or Sunday.
My trip begins with the usual procedure. Get to the airport, head to baggage drop, get my bag tagged and on the carousel, get my boarding passes, the whole shindig. The young lady at the Delta check-in desk, whose name I recall, but refuse to provide for personal reasons, told me she could scan my ID (which I would later find out had expired like 2 months ago) in lieu of me using the check-in kiosk.
I gratefully accepted her offer, and she got me my paper boarding passes, even stapled them together to make it easier to keep up with them, which was certainly a nice gesture :D.
I then got in the appropriate security line (TSA PreCheck is amazing, $85 for 5 years is an absolute steal, would recommend taking advantage.) The agent whose line I went through, they also appeared to be very young. He told me that my ID (Limited Learners Permit) had expired, but that I get a year’s grace period.
Proceeded to send my carry-on through the scanner, no issues there, then took a seat in CLT’s iconic rocking chairs to organize my carry-on bag. I noticed a huge Army presence in the lobby of CLT that morning, but thought nothing of it, until I learned a day or so later that those were soldiers from Fort Jackson, SC, coming home for a 2 week break from Basic Training.
I got a picture of Orville and Wilbur, two seasonal statues in the airport’s lobby, before making my way to Starbucks to grab some breakfast. I took said breakfast to my gate, and proceeded to wait, while chatting with a couple amigos through Instagram DMs. One friend (who just so happened to work for Delta as a ramp agent through a third-party contractor) alerted me to a ground stop, which held my arriving plane (A 2-year old Airbus A321) from Hartsfield-Jackson by a half-hour.
The A321 eventually arrives, gets cleaned, and we board for DTW. The flight up there was a bit rocky on departure, but excellent overall. I was excited when Delta’s all too iconic Biscoff cookies came around. The IFE, as small as it was,
it was very responsive to my touch. Unfortunately, my luck had run out, as the Comfort+ seat I was in did not have a window in that row.
We landed Runway 4L in Detroit (a very hard landing at that) and once I deplaned, I eventually found something to eat, and made my way to Gate C20, while on the way I saw 2 Delta A350-900’s. I then boarded a full Devil’s Chariot to Alpena, and it’s easy to see why the CRJ-200 is despised by so many travelers.
Pictures:
