Hartford, CT - July 12, 2006 & Stuck at the Airport

It's 6 PM and I'm sitting in the Bradley-Hartford Airport. I arrived at the airport about two hours before scheduled departure time. Upon check-in, I found out that my flight was delayed by an hour. Instead of leaving at 7:20, I'll be leaving at 8:20. An unclear reason blaming aircraft problems was given.

The airport is relatively small. The major airlines that service the airport are US Airways and Southwest. A few years ago, as Southwest expanded into the Northeast, its reaseachers deterimned that travelers going into or out of the Boston-area would be willing to drive to or from Hartford if the airfare was low enough. Southwest then added a number of flights to the Hartford airport.

The airport offers free wireless Internet service. That's a nice plus for those of us lugging laptops around. The signal strength is surprisingly strong. Since the airport is relatively small, there are not throngs of people sitting around and waiting for flights like at LAX or ORD.

The food options are limited. There is "Wicked Good Subs" and "Last Resort" which is a bar. Patrons at the establishments are road-weary travelers, with a look of aimlessness about them.

While in Hartford, I stayed at the Homewood Suites. I was pleasantly surprised with the hotel. The rooms are designed to provide a couch, coffee table and kitchennette with a full-sized refrigerator, dishwasher, kitchen sink, microwave and dining table.

The furniture is mostly presswood. It has an IKEA-feel to it. Functional. Not great, not terrible. Perfectly fine for a basic business hotel.

The hotel also offers a continental breakfast and a Manager's reception each day. The selections were reasonable. I had French Toast Sticks and scrambled eggs the first morning. They looked like they were pre-frozen and reheated at the hotel. You had the option to make-your-own waffles as well.

The Manager's reception offered a basic entree, sodas, juices, Budweiser, modest wines with twist off caps and chilled merlots, and - my favorite, warm cookies.

I stayed at a Homewood Suites about 6 years ago. I was terribly disappointed. The rooms were small, hot and had a plastic smell to them. The bed mattress was foam. And there was a dead bug in the kitchenette. I avoided Homewood Suites after that experience. But my experience with the Hartford Homewood Suites was a marked improvement over my previous experience.

Before heading to Hartford, I was up in NYC again to attend a meeting. The meeting location turned out to be right across the street from Grand Hyatt that I stayed at in June. I would have liked to have spent more time in NYC. But I was only there for a meeting, and headed out of the city immediately afterwards.

I took the MTA from Grand Central Terminal out to New Haven, CT. New Haven is where Yale is located. It has a history of being a college town with a number of transitional neighborhoods. The train ride took 2 hours. I didn't think it would take that long. But New Haven was the last stop on the MTA line.

After arriving at New Haven, my travel partners and I were hungry and sought out Pepe's Pizza, a restaurant with a reputation of having the best pizza in CT. After driving around the city for awhile, we finally found the Wooster Street establishment, only to encounter a line of 40 people waiting to get a seat.

Too hungry to wait, we walked around the Little Italy neighborhood and finally settled Consiglio's. The food was great, the service was prompt and that made up for missing out on Pepe's.

Sitting at the Hartford Airport, with the aroma of cheap airport pizza wafting through the terminal, I reminisce about what might of been at Pepe's.