Cordillera International Film Festival: Salt Lake City Airport

Posted on by Thor

On the flight back from Reno, Nevada where I had attended the Cordillera International Film Festival, there was a three hour lay over in Salt Lake City. I of course used the time to sketch. I would not be getting back to Orlando until 5:30AM. So my hope was that I might get some sleep on the flight. In the man time I had travelers to sketch. The guy with his feet up on his luggage suspected I was up to something nefarious and kept glancing over at me. I made sure to be looking and sketching some other part of the scene when he looked my way. Eventually he settled in and watched a movie on his iPhone in his lap.

Of course sketching the airport in Salt Lake City is really no different than any other airport sketch. Had I taken a full day, I could have explored the huge family history archives in the city. Some people took to lying on the floors to sleep. A little 10 year old boy got impatient and kept walking around with hill rolling luggage. The bag was too large for him to maneuver so he kept bumping into people. As always I was the only person masked, although I did see several people rush by to their flights. Perhaps only Floridians are clueless that we are still in the 9th wave of the pandemic.

On the flight I ended up watching the first Dune movie, so I didn’t actually get any sleep on the flight. They wear such awesome masks and goggles in Dune. I might have nodded off in the last hour when the movie was over. I do think I am still jet lagged.

Cordillera International Film Festival: Flight Out of OIA

Posted on by Thor

The flight to the Cordillera International Film Festival from Orlando International Airport just happened to line up with the day Hurricane Helene was churning north in the Gulf of Mexico. My sister reported that the eye of the hurricane would be west of Port Charlotte about Noon on that day.

I caught a Lyft to the airport about 10 AM to catch a Noon flight. It was cloudy but clear when I left, but we drove right towards a wall of dark grey clouds on the trip south to the airport. Half way there it began to rain. I joked with the driver that it would likely rain for the rest of the day. I realized that I likely left a ceiling fan on at home. There was no going back. Perhaps a power outage might save some electricity?

In the airport waiting area it seemed like everyone was checking their phones to see the track of the eye of the storm. I was sure the airplane would fly north away from the front bands of the storm. I was sure of that since airplanes roar over my home daily every half hour or so, their engines rattling the windows. I had hoped that I might sketch someone else wearing a mask, but I was the only one, except several airport staff. Am I crazy? Well that is rhetorical, I know the answer, but I also know too much about the invisible damage the virus is doing to peoples vascular systems, brains and immune systems.

There was a 15 minute delay boarding, but we were assured that we would make up the time with a strong tail wind. Strangely as the plane tires left the tarmac, it was sunny out. There were a few gut wrenching bumps on the ascent to cruising altitude but after that it was a smooth flight. I watched the movie Dune on the flight north west. We flew to Minneapolis where there was a 3 hour layover before catching another flight to Reno. It felt good to be flying thousands of miles away from the advancing hurricane. It was a rather extreme form of voluntary evacuation.