04 October 2009

The Big Buses

Anybody who has been to Dulles airport in the DC nether regions is no doubt familiar with the big buses, or "transit lounges", as they call them. They are soon to be things of the past.

My family lived in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1968-69, and when Uncle Jim, Aunt Margie, and Chuck visited, the boys drove all the way out to Dulles to check it out. COOL! At that time, there were no remote terminals at Dulles, and Fairfax was the distant suburb. The big buses went directly from the swoop-roofed terminal to the planes. Now, Dulles has been encased by the 'burbs, and people commute to the district from Leesburg. YIKES! I desparately wanted to fly somewhere in 1968, but that was not in the cards.

Recently, though, I was dealt that hand! I got to fly into Dulles and take the big bus from Terminal B to the main terminal. Flying now is not as glamorous as I imagined it was in 1968, but it was still cool on the big bus. Flying may not have been glamorous back then either, but my vision of flying at age 4 was a United jet on "Hawaii Five-O" (still one of my favorite shows) arriving in Honolulu and each passenger being leid after descending the stairs from the plane. (I flew American Airlines to Hawaii in 2003, and that didn't happen.)

They are now almost finished with an underground train system to replace the big buses. Airport security has already gone underground, and the trains appear to be about ready for business, too. Is it the end of Dulles as I know it?

I wonder if they are going to sell the big buses. I wonder if they are street-legal in Texas, where everything (except the political brain) is bigger. I would imagine that they are, since the original Hummer H1 is. Does anyone want to pitch in and share one? That could be a fun drive from Dulles to Dallas! (Hey! Just change the vowels!)

1 comment:

Sally-Page Stuck said...

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go in with you and get one. It would be a step up from the beat up car I'm driving now.