On Sunday we checked out of the hotel and headed straight back to the spot we’d left the night before. We headed east around Bell Rock and quickly noted that with the amount of photo-stoppage time that would be applied to our game – we’d never finish before the buzzer (our park pass from Saturday only lasted until noon). We said goodbye to the rocks, agreed we’d come back again with four healthy ankles, and ate lunch at a breakfast shop along highway 179.
Beverly noted it was the best omelet she’d ever eaten – although they managed to give her the wrong cheese and wrong peppers.
We arrived in Phoenix a few hours early. After being rebuffed by the Southwest folks (it costs more to change flights than buy a new ticket) we decided to wander around downtown Phoenix, which turned out to be a terribly lonely place on a Sunday afternoon. We spotted what looked like a rotating bar atop the Hyat hotel. After climbing the glass elevator we were stopped at the 21st floor because the restaurant wouldn’t open until 5:30pm.
After spending more time than originally planned at the rental car return (apparently Beverly’s embassy discount is more myth than fact – existing in the system with over ten descriptions but with no rates listed anywhere) we made it to the airport with just over an hour to spare. Beverly had assured me (based on her LAX experience) that we’d be picked up at the curb with disabled flyer’s services and whisked through check-in and security. No such luck. The disabled check-in was stymied by a line of twenty disabled college girls fresh from a special Olympics style competition (they all had their special red trikes). The regular check-in was quick enough and the attendant pointed us in the direction of the “black shirt guys” that would get Beverly a wheel-chair to go to our terminal. The black shirt guy was clueless, so we walked to one end of the place to ask a security guard what to do. He informed us we had to walk to the other end to get a wheelchair. This lack of concern left us a little frazzled, but we got the wheelchair and proceeded to the security checkpoint post-haste.
Upon reaching security we were rebuffed again, informed with no fanfare that the wheelchair would have to be abandoned at the beginning of the line. When Beverly went through the metal detector they asked her to take off her (special doctor prescribed ankle) boot. When she went over to take it off the screener looking at the rubber tubs said “they made you take it off? Don’t take it off”… The metal detector man once again told her to take it off – which caused the rubber tub man to holler for the hand-wanding expert. It was a few minutes of waiting in the quarantine area before the wanding woman arrived. Of course when she did arrive she was totally oblivious to the reason Beverly was in it, asking her to STAND UP to be wanded several times. Everything considered it took us at least ten minutes more to get through security than a normal person (or if she’d have hopped on one foot). However, once that ordeal was done with – we were still without a wheelchair to get her to the gate (which was the last gate in the terminal of course).
Luckily we found one nearby unaccounted for and “stole” it. We arrived at the gate just as preboarding was beginning.
Back in Los Angeles safe and sound we were met at the plane by an LAX service person who put Beverly in a wheelchair and escorted us all the way out to the WallyPark pick-up point. It was a world of difference from our experience at PHX. So much for “the friendliest airport in the world.”
We rented Flags of our Fathers (not as good as Saving Pvt. Ryan) and ate Ono Hawaiian BBQ.
