Paul Glover, Photographer

On the New England trip back at the start of the month, we found ourselves with a fair bit of time to kill while waiting around in airports, in both directions.

On the outbound our original layover in LaGuardia, which we were a little concerned about, was just about an hour. Regionals being what they are, we did worry about our 9am out of Roanoke being delayed. Not to worry, though! Because Delta 86-ed the 9am flight and rebooked us on the 7am we specifically had wanted to avoid so we could sleep until 5am instead of 3am on our travel morning.

We are not morning people. The crappy, pouring down rain weather and I-81 being its usual joyful experience certainly didn’t help. Oh well, at least we had 3 hours in LGA now.

Turns out 3 hours is more than enough time to walk, very slowly, from gate to gate within LGA’s terminal C, stopping to check out places to grab a snack or something. We could probably have walked to every spot in the terminal and still had time to kill.

So, after getting settled in at our departure gate (along with all the people waiting to board the flight before ours from that gate) Kelli tasked me with the vital mission of obtaining a pumpkin spice frappuccino from Starbucks. Which was a good walk back through the terminal.

I took my camera along; I’d seen a few interesting things along the way and decided to turn it into an impromptu solo photo walk.

As ever, I was surprised at how basically nobody notices even a fairly substantial camera, even in a place where roaming photographers aren’t usually spotted. I think I saw one other person who had an actual camera, and they weren’t actively photographing anything (they were running at some speed for their gate).

Another departure from LaGuardia to who knows where.

This rather forlorn looking motley of pallets and an overturned boat caught my eye from the travelator and demanded a return to more closely investigate. I took several shots but this one best captured the weird isolation of this spot caught between a secure perimeter fence and the water.

Some architectural almost-symmetry while I waited for the very efficient baristas to whip up our calorific caffeinated beverages. Opting for almond milk does help make them a little less naughty, and walking considerable distances while not eating any kind of meaningful meals on any sort of measurable schedule surely offset it some.

One of these things is not like the other. Southwestern 737 at positive rate, gear up and climbing out while a group of parked Delta airliners waits their turn.

This sign made it very clear that takeout of some sort could be had, and exactly where to get it. But out of context, it’s vague as to just what exactly. (A decent breakfast sandwich on a toasted split bagel, in case you needed to know.)

Delta aren’t the only aviation game in LGA terminal C. Though I don’t think my carry-on would fit on this any better than it does on a CRJ-900.

The return trip from BOS-LGA-ROA was not much better. We built in a slightly longer layover at LGA, with a flight leaving in the early evening.

Everything out of BOS terminal A looked like it was delayed. Which left us yet again with connecting flight anxiety.

But again, we didn’t have to worry. For starters, our delayed flight out of Boston ended up arriving at LaGuardia almost on time anyway. And our flight out of LaGuardia? Well… that was a “butterfly effect” situation if ever I experienced one. Despite not going anywhere remotely close to Raleigh-Durham, NC, our entire evening (and that of maybe a couple of hundred other people) was altered by someone near that airport putting a digger shovel through a fiber optic cable several hours before we had even checked out of the hotel in Boston.

Ground stops at that airport left aircraft and crews stuck. Our inbound aircraft was delayed by over 5 hours! Which, incredibly, only resulted in our flight being delayed by about 2 and a half hours.

Our arrival and departure gates for that layover were about 50 yards apart.

I didn’t bother pulling out the big camera (or taking any photos at all) at LaGuardia. It was dark outside, and I wasn’t in a picture taking kind of mood by then. We just wanted to get where we were going, since we would have another hour’s drive from the airport to home.

I did grab this one with my phone at Boston while fetching another of those delightful fraps. I’ll take the G9 any day over an iPhone camera (ergonomics and usage are irritating to me), but sometimes it’s the camera you have to hand, and it produces technically reasonable images. Besides, a camera might take a photograph but it doesn’t make a photograph. There’s a difference between those two things…

Roger’s Fish and Chips with a very Boston (Baahstaahn?) sign. No clam chowdah though?