The Walla Walla airport

I touched on the airport earlier, but I am still amazed by the over-complexity of this tiny airport. On a really busy day this airport handles 100 outbound and 100 inbound passengers, yet it has a restaurant and 2 rental car agencies. For my outbound flight, there were 20 people and 7 TSA employees in addition to a police officer. WHAT? Why would they possibly need 7 TSA employees to scan 20 people?

1. Well, they had one lady check my ID and boarding pass.
2. The next guy put all of my stuff in the bin for me and walked me through the metal detector.
3. There is another employee viewing the x-ray machine screen.
4. Another person to check you with a wand if the metal detector goes off.
5. One to hand me back my belongings and restack the bins as my stuff exits the x-ray machine.
6. Another person search luggage if the x-ray scanner sees anything.
7. And one last person to stand back and watch.

This must be some silly Homeland Security thing. The other funny thing is there was a lady making numerous announcements over the paging system. There were only 20 of us.

Other than an extra stop in Yakima on the way to Seattle due to another plane breaking down, the flight home was uneventful. We did hit some good turbulence going over the Cascade Mountains where the plane would drop and I would grab onto the seat in-front of me. I have flown hundreds of times and I am generally pretty good with turbulence, but it’s a little different in a small plane going over the mountains.

The last couple of days have been dull. I have been working extra hours this week (got to work at 5:00 am this morning). I am looking forward to picking Vanessa up at the airport tonight.

P.S. Vanessa – Here is the link to the “Best Place to Live”. Strangely when I answered the questions for my ideal place to live, Walla Walla came up as the place the site suggested. Try it for yourself…