A Road Less Travelled

Since my father booked my flights this time and his plane ticket fu is greater than mine I went through Detroit on my way to and from Erie. Last time I went through Detroit I didn’t have much time to look around, but this time I had over an hour there each way so I thought I’d look around and see if there was anything interesting to look at. With interesting sights in mind I moseyed up to the airport map.

The very first thing I noticed was that like most airports the Detroit airport is big, sprawling and completely separated from anything around it. It’s a little world within a world. The airport is only a part of Detroit in that they share a name, but it is a separate entity with a logic all it’s own. I’ve never been to Detroit for all the time that I’ve spent in the airport. Likewise I’m not sure I’ve actually been to Chicago because most of the time I’ve spent there has been in O’Hare and Union Station. These places exist within their parent cities without being a part of them.

The other thing I noticed on the map was a tunnel that connects concourse A with concourses B and C. “A tunnel,” I thought. “That’s tremendous.” There’d been a tunnel in the Cleveland airport that was dark with neon graffiti on the walls. Add in a moving sidewalk and I’d been in bliss. Maybe this tunnel would be like that. So I made sure I was pointing the right way and set off to find this tunnel.

There are two ways to get to The Tunnel, which had taken on capital letters in my head. The map showed one way involving a series of escalators and some boring walking in between. The other way had some boring walking and then a really big escalator. This was a no brainer. I located the really big escalator which conveniently had no one on it and rode it down to where The Tunnel was supposed to be.

It seemed a bit odd to me that there was no really big up escalator to complement the down escalator, but I naively assumed that the airport knew what it was doing. I got off the really big escalator, all abuzz with excitement, and took in my surroundings. Truth be told, it didn’t look very tunnelly to me. It certainly didn’t look like The Tunnel. If anything, it looked like a hallway from a municipal building. A quiet, deserted hallway. A quiet, deserted hallway with a corner up ahead and no way to see what was around that corner. A quiet, deserted hallway etc. with no up escalator in sight.

I toyed briefly with the idea of walking up the down escalator, but I’m not a cleverly written novel and I didn’t want to get in trouble with the airport police so I hunted for a way out that didn’t involve approaching that corner. Turns out there are two corners in this particular creepy hallway. Around the one closest to me was a bank of elevators all going up. I went up, got some food and wondered why in the world there was a huge Tunnel on the map when it was really just a creepy hallway.

Two weeks passed. I boarded a plane from Erie going to Detroit and on this plane is a woman with her five-year-old son. During the flight they chatted about this and that and since they were across the aisle from me I couldn’t help overhear. One of the topics of conversation that came up was The Tunnel at the Detroit airport. The little boy was remembering how scared he been last time they went through it. I could relate to that; that hallway was creepy. The mother said that maybe it had something to do with the flashing lights and the music. Hang on, I thought. What flashing lights? What music? I was in that municipal building hallway of a tunnel and I didn’t see any lights so much as flicker and I sure didn’t hear any music. So now I knew I had to check it out again.

We landed uneventfully and the little boy and his stuffed dog each got a pin for being such good passengers. Luckily, I was so focused on the new Tunnel information I didn’t have brain space to be jealous. I mean, I’d been a good passenger, too. I’ve never gotten a pin. Never mind, there was a Tunnel to see about.

This time I was smart and went by the main ways. Really, I have no idea why I went the other way the first time. The series of escalators went right by huge windows and felt way bigger than the really big escalator. And the boring walking wasn’t so bad. As an added bonus at the bottom of these escalators, which went up and down, was The Tunnel with no twists, turns or corners. Just marvelous Tunnel as far as the eye could see.

It was about as wide as a hallway in a mall with moving sidewalks on either side. The walls were panels of glass with just a bit of swoosh on them that stretched up onto the ceiling. Behind the walls and ceiling was the coolest light show I’ve seen. Music with a throbbing, driving beat was playing and the walls changed in time with the beat. It was a psychedelic light show set to trippy music. Like a multi-colored lava lamp with a great soundtrack. I rode the sidewalks to the other side and back again. This Tunnel was just what I’d hoped for.

Off to one side of the B and C side of The Tunnel was a hallway that led to a really big escalator. It had one very important turn in it that completely blocked the other end of the hallway from view. Just a short, unpretentious, little hallway that stood between a way down and the second coolest Tunnel I’ve seen. Such an important little hallway.