SDF
Walk: Thursday, September 18, 2014
5.5 Miles / 1:50 / 18:45 - 20:30
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Whether I’m going
across town to go to work or I’m driving across the country, I love the
activity of transit. As the purported
top tier of travel, though, air travel has always been the most appealing
method. Even after humans have been
flying for a century, air travel defies logic.
The process we go through sounds absurd: pack hundreds of souls into an
aluminum cigar tube, floor the engines, and then fly seven miles above the
earth for a few hours.
As facilitators
of travel, airports, for many, are a means to an end. Pay the parking, stand in line, lose your
personal bubble during security, then stand in line again for overpriced coffee
and then wait around until your plane is ready.
Air travel is a chore for a large amount of the population, and airports
are a contributing factor to their opinion.
I, on the other
hand, love airports. Nowhere else will you see people from so many
places crossing paths, each with a different destination, a different
motivation, a different family. Everyone’s
got something and somewhere on their mind and unless you see them boarding,
you’ll never know where they’re headed.
Airports embody the spirit of exploration and travel that I long for.
My mother was a
traveler; as a child, Mom would be out on a trip perhaps half the time. Learning about the places Mom was going was
exciting. “Wow, Mom’s in Florida
today? But she was just here
yesterday!” One weekend Mom would be in
Tampa, Salt Lake City the next, and then she’d be off to Seattle the week after
that. My mother’s been to every State in
the Union multiple times and every continent, and even then I knew I wanted to
follow in her footsteps.
Thus, our own
humble airport in Louisville, Kentucky played a special role in my
childhood. Going to the airport meant
one of two things: Mom was coming home, or we were all traveling together. On an uncommon occasion, we would be invited
along on Mom’s nontraditional business trips, flying off to some exotic
location (yes, Minneapolis was exotic for a ten-year-old.) Even with the obvious parental stress of
prepping two children for travel, I still loved it. The moment we’d get home, I’d be itching to
see where we’d go next. I took my first
international flight to Paris when I was thirteen. The way I feel about our own airport has
overflowed to airports around the world; in a way, each holds that special
excitement, that rare joy of living your dreams and sharing them with someone
special.
As I’ve grown
older, I’ve grown to appreciate airports as logistical masterpieces,
synchronizing the intersection of the paths of thousands of people and aircraft
every single day, 365 days a year. The design
of the buildings themselves fascinate me, too.
I love the architecture of airports, which are designed to evoke that
same sense of openness and freedom I loved as a child.
But on to today’s
walk. Several weeks ago, I was feeling a
bit under the weather, so I was at Kroger and I was waiting for an antibiotic
to get filled. After handing over the script,
she told me it’d be ready in about an hour.
As opposed to going home again, I decided to take an impromptu
walk. It was a beautiful August evening,
really a spectacular display.
I walked where I
felt like walking, down the sidewalk beside the University of Louisville
football stadium’s mammoth parking lot. I
didn’t know how far a walk an hour could afford me, and it would be getting
dark soon. The airport was not far, so I
pushed to get there in a reasonable enough time to return.
This was as close
as I got, but more on this later.
I love to walk
places you’d never expect to walk, and as hard as it was to fight the urge, I
realized I wasn’t going to be able to reach my destination before dark. I was already on the back road to the
terminal, but I retreated. The sky was a
nice consolation prize though.
“I should have
run. I managed my speed poorly,” I
grumbled, wishing I had hurried. I had
always wanted to walk to the airport,
and I’d lost my perfect chance. I cut
corners on the way back and ran at a bit of a clip as the clouds’ glow dimmed
to match the pallor of the night behind them.
I picked up my
pace on the way back, cutting across the enormous parking lot before arriving
back at the store, where my little bottle of pink goo and a cold drink awaited
me. I vowed that I’d walk it again, with
more time to really take in the sights and to experience one of the most significant
places of my childhood on foot.
After work one
Thursday afternoon, the weather looked perfect, and I resolved to finish what I
started.
Parking under the
same pretense as before, I ventured off and walked east along Central
Avenue. If I’d have gone west, I would
have hit the Kentucky-Derby-famous Churchill Downs not half a mile from where I
started. It’s actually quite funny to
watch the Derby, knowing my quotidian grocery store is just out of frame on an
internationally televised event.
The
aforementioned Papa John’s Stadium is the home of the Louisville Cardinals, the
closest thing we’ll ever get to an NFL franchise. A few
years ago, they added the nosebleed seats you see on the right, increasing
their capacity by another 13,000 or so.
People in Louisville love their college sports, that’s for sure. I’ve been to the stadium for non-athletic functions
much more often than games. In fact, my
very first high school dance was held in a rented space there, right after the
stadium was built.
Here’s another
angle that might show you both the size of this thing and also what a pleasant
afternoon it was. Two birds, you know.
It wasn’t long
before I curved onto Crittenden Drive, the longest single stretch of the
trip. Plenty of sunlight left. Crittenden Drive is a polarized street; on
the eastern side of the road lies the Kentucky State Fairgrounds and Kentucky
Kingdom, our recently resurrected amusement park which just completed its first
season back. On the western side,
industrial warehouses, motels, and car lots line the sidewalk.
I’d never noticed
any of these warehouses up close. Except
for renting a van to move a couch once, I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped on Crittenden Drive. An antiquated, baby blue industrial building
sat silently. It had the air of use, but
I didn’t see a soul inside. This large,
cracked lot dully reflected the sun’s glimmer.
Almost
there! This plane came roaring
overhead. You can make out that it’s a
FedEx cargo liner, perhaps an Airbus 300 or a Boeing 757. Moments later, it’d touchdown at my own destination.
I crossed to the
eastern side of the street. This old
relic, which sat derelict for almost a decade, used to be called Twisted
Sisters when I went to Kentucky Kingdom regularly. After losing a lawsuit to Dee Snyder et. al.,
the band “Twisted Sister” forced Kentucky Kingdom to rename the ride. Where they landed I’m not sure, but I’ll
always remember it as a pair of wooden roller coasters that ran beside each
other in a mirrored path. Also, their
other wooden rollercoaster, Thunder Run, was better.
This old-style
house looks out of place amongst the highways, new service stations, and
towering roller coasters that surround it.
I can’t even tell what it is...is it a storefront? An old gas
station? A murder factory? That outbuilding in the back looks shady as
hell, and it’s probably even worse at night.
As I cross under
the Watterson Expressway, I encounter a shape I consider distinctly Louivillian. The keystone-like concrete bricks that make
up the retaining wall for the dirt and packed earth that make up the roadbed
above can be found all over Louisville, almost exclusively, in fact. Even when I see a similar or identical shape
in overpasses around the country, I always think of Louisville.
As I neared the
end of Crittenden Drive, a construction project carried on beside me. I have no idea what they’re doing; perhaps
it’s a salvage operation or a leveling operation for some new development. With a hurried step, I crossed Crittenden to
Terminal Drive.
This was where I had
stopped. What you see here is a tower
associated with the airport’s approach lightning system. This system, using a series of flashing
lights and radar signatures, tells the pilot approaching this runway how far
they are from touchdown and, in reduced visibility, whether they should proceed
with the landing or make another pass. A
few minutes ago, our spotted plane certainly landed here, at runway 17R.
The number in the
runway is not ordinal; Louisville’s airport doesn’t have seventeen runways.
Instead, it indicates the heading one must take to land straight on the runway,
rounded to the nearest ten with the final zero removed. So, to land on this runway, a plane must be approaching
something around heading 170, nearly due south.
The “R” is used if there is another runway at that airport that uses the
same heading, that is, a parallel runway.
Louisville has two runway 17s, so the “R” indicates that, on approach,
the pilot will be approaching the runway on his or her right, relative to his
or her approach.
Every runway is a
two-way street and can be used in either direction, at least in theory. Thus, if you were taking off or landing from
the other direction, you must approach from the opposite direction, a
180-degree difference. If we were
landing from the other direction, the runway’s number is 35, for a heading of
350 degrees, almost due north. Every
runway has two numbers associated with it.
Louisville has three runways total: 17R/35L, 17L/35R, as well as a
shorter runway, 11/29, for small jets and one-seater planes, that crosses over
the other two, making a crooked “H” shape.
Pretty cool, huh?
The sun was low,
so it seems my timing was much better.
If I’d tried this in August, I would have been out of light by now and
stumbling back in the twilight.
Here we are at
SDF; Louisville’s airport code is SDF, indicating the airport’s original name,
Standiford Field. It was still called
that when I was younger. Even though
it’s silly, I was always glad our airport code wasn’t boring or obvious. “SEA” is Seattle, “DFW” is Dallas/Fort-Worth,
but ours was not intuitive, and I liked that.
Like most airports, the drop-off point has two levels: the upper level
is for departures, and the lower level is for arrivals. In my youth, I spent the majority of my time
at the airport riding shotgun as my father cruised through the lower level in
his white Pontiac minivan, looking for a glimpse of my mother at the curb. Instead of parking and meeting her at the
baggage claim, we’d ride around the terminal loop if there wasn’t a place to idle
curbside. After 9/11, waiting at the
curb was prohibited for security reasons, so this habit manifested even more in
my young adult years.
As you can see,
people still try to loiter as long as they can, hoping their loved one will
walk out before a DHS officer shoos them along.
Although the inside has since been renovated, the concrete,
brutalist-style portico reflects its formerly 1980s-esque vibe.
I crossed at the
crosswalk to get to the main entrance.
With a glance at my sunlight, I wandered through the sliding doors. Our baggage claim is on the first floor, and
upstairs, naturally, houses our airline desks.
I rounded the corner in the quiet corridor to take the escalator
up. The escalator wasn’t running at this
time of day, though, so I bounded up the metal steps instead. The desks upstairs were shuttered for the
evening, too. I wandered toward what I
guess you could call the lobby.
Even though I’ve
been here dozens of time since, I always forget that they’ve remodeled. In the 90s, the carpet and walls were shaded
an awkward orange alongside unusually styled accoutrements on the walls and ceilings
and out-of-date fixtures. At the time, I
always thought Louisville was a little funky and antiquated, and I still do,
but they’ve caught up with the times a lot.
We’re just as sleek as any larger airport, with all the charm and
comfort of a small one.
Down this empty
hallway lies a military lounge; because of Louisville’s proximity to Fort Knox
and Fort Campbell further south, a lot of servicemembers come home via SDF, and
it always makes me happy to see them.
They’re about to have a good day.
This wire Pegasus
sculpture brings back a lot of memories, too.
It used to hang up in the main rotunda planeside past security, but now
it hangs out here so the non-flyers can see it, too. Kentucky is known for horses, so Pegasus is a
reasonable extrapolation. For lots of
locals, we can’t see a picture of this sculpture and not think of the airport.
I decided that
TSA agents would probably not like being photographed, so I snapped it from a
bit of a distance. With a now stowed camera,
I went to the checkpoint, where, dozens of people sat waiting for the return of
loved ones. Some were snacking on a
salty treat, others were enraptured by their phones, and others were watching
the planes taxi outside. According to
the flight monitors, one plane was due in from Chicago and another from
Nashville, and it listed an outbound flight the following morning that had
already been delayed, probably because the plane it was planning to use was
late.
The opposite wing
from the military lounge contained a textile exhibit, one I’d never had time
nor the desire to notice. With no plane
to catch or monitor to watch, I strolled down the deserted hallway, reviewing
the collection. The corridor doubled
back, exiting on the opposite side of the departure hall from where I
entered. With some sunlight still left,
I walked onto the departure curb and hooked a right.
After descending
down a predictably concrete stairway, I emerged in a part of the airport
grounds I never knew existed. An
overhung sidewalk which led to a “premium” parking lot and the newly
constructed cell phone lot stretched out in front of me, and I instinctively
followed it.
SDF’s terminals
are very linear. The eastern Terminal A
stretched out in one direction, and the western Terminal B stretches out the
other way, creating an inverted “Y” shape if viewed from above. Here you can see A with several planes
docked, most of them recent arrivals.
The picture’s a
bit fuzzy, but this was the old old
terminal building, the Lee Terminal, or at least what’s left of it. They tore the majority of it down when the
new terminals were built in the 1980s, but for some reason, they left this
chunk. Weird.
Apparently,
either our previous or current mayor had added a walkway along the eastern part
of the grounds so people waiting for their flight or their loved one’s flight
could walk instead of sitting. Signs
indicated this was called “the Mayor’s Mile,” though I’m not sure where the
rest of the mile was, as it took only a few minutes to walk its length.
I’m not actually
sure what this array is, but it looked cool in the setting sunlight.
I love how the
sunlight glows through the top level of the parking garage. It looks like someone’s lit a fire on the top
floor, ready to settle in for the night.
The cell phone
lot, isolated from the rest of the roads and the terminal, offered a peaceful
place to watch planes take off and land.
I stood here for a minute, listening to the run-up of the jet engines
and the din of traffic in the distance.
Soon, though, it
was time to head back.
I ambled back
down the path, up the concrete staircase and along the departure level to the
western side to watch the sun set.
This is Terminal
B; whenever I fly out of this terminal, it always seems to be on Southwest. Terminal A must contain the other airlines. The cars below are rentals.
The rotunda, the
large domed structure in the center, is the axle that joins the spokes of the
two terminals and the pedway, on the far left, to get to them. When I was younger, large, colorful kites
hung below the ocular ceiling and, at one point, the wire Pegasus did too, if I
recall. I remember running around in
circles pretending I was a plane underneath the muslin display, vocalizing the
whirring and rushing of the engines as I flew.
Now it houses a couple souvenir shops and a Starbucks.
My time was
almost up, so I walked down the opposite concrete staircase and walked along
the road out. The sky was a palette of
colors; the orange was the heaviest, settling towards the horizon like silt.
I moved back at a
pretty good speed, lest I get caught in the feared darkness.
The parking lot
was blocked off this time, so I followed the sidewalk back along Park
Road. Security cars were parked cleverly
on the roadside, silently deterring mischief.
I reached the pedestrian bridge and crossed after a half-mile walk.
The stadium
glowed with fluorescent lights now, as still as a tomb despite its
brightness. I turned one last corner and
I was back to home base. A big grin
washed over my face, my delayed goal now accomplished.
I don’t know what
it is about airports. I can’t shake it;
years later, I still love to walk from one end to other, exploring the nooks
and crannies of our travel experience. I
build in long layovers in unfamiliar airports so I can walk them as long as
possible. Walking the airport today was
unusual; I wasn’t picking anyone up and I wasn’t flying anywhere myself. Stress-free, I was able to explore the place
that brought such good news to me when I was young on my own schedule. Exploration, at its heart, is about that
epiphany, where nothing distracts or detracts from the discovery of the new.
Matt
