The San Francisco treat

Was in San Francisco last weekend for a wedding. And on the departure home I spotted this (photo above) at the SF airport. This was but one of the many mini-museum spread throughout the recently remodeled concourse. 

Had I known I was going to pen a blog piece about SFO, a place I always dreaded in the past, I would have been more diligent with my picture taking. Suffice to say or suffice it to say ( I still haven't come to a decision of how to correctly use the phrase) this airport, located far outside the city on the south, has leaped to the top of my Favorite Airport List.

Here we see Ms. Muse, mother of one of the lovely brides, standing amidst the clean, white swooping architecture reminiscent of a 1970's futuristic film. She's filling her water bottle at one of the filtered water stations also scattered throughout the incredibly spacious terminal. Who looks at a water station and thinks, "Holy shit that's cool."

But it is.

I'll be smiling too if the remodeling currently taking place at LAX ever looks like this. This was but one of the little improvements that make the airport experience that much less stressful. In retrospect I wish I had taken a shot of the bag drop. 

They've automated the entire process. You simply lay your luggage on a conveyor belt which quickly scans your items including your traveling accoutrement. It also weighs your bag hoping to cop another fee for the airlines. And then it ramps it up to converge with another conveyor belt that takes it to the back, which I doubt looks as inviting, spacious and hospital clean as the front.

This is another example of how automation is replacing humans in order to increase profits. But let's face it, in 9 out of 10 instances the folks at the bag drop counter are one notch above the disgruntled personnel at the DMV, who must have nightmares of themselves drowning in a choral sea of "Next."

Finally, and this may be the chiropractic straw that repaired the camel's back, the airport is QUIET. Church quiet. All announcements are made at the gate and where they are whispered on an audio system that doesn't sound like it was previously used at the Port Authority in NYC.

I never thought I'd find myself gushing about an airport. But in our current zeitgeist, when everything seems to be going in the wrong direction, it was refreshing to be in presence of something done right.

Speaking of which, here's a a shot of us in our Sunday Best at the wedding of two women who are equally refreshing in their celebration of love, wisdom and joy.