Ah, those days as a road warrior, not so long ago. Sleeping on a cot with hundreds of cotted others in the dim hallways of a completely shut-down O'Hare. It echoed the London Tube during the Blitz.
Not sure I miss 'em, those days. Don't regret 'em, though ... going cardio, sprinting in late middle-age through airports when your connection arrived late; that counts as a day's exercise. Who doesn't secretly swell with pride when, with 8.5 billion other people on the planet, your name's called on Atlanta's airport PA? "Passenger Thomas Ahern, the door's about to close." Snarling gate agents as the last thing heard on earth.
Or sleeping in a closet next to the vending-machine room (only space available in a motel) in boom (but small) town Odessa, TX; which smells strongly and lucratively of the town's chief export, oil. And what grounded us road warriors that day? Some bolt the pilots deemed essential fell off the plane as it was taxiing for takeoff. Disappointments don't get more sigh-y than that. If we could have voted? "We'll get a fresh bolt when we land." But, no....
Or flying home from a masterclass on the shores of Loch Ness just as the pandemic was about to swallow the world. You could hear the national borders snapping shut on our US-bound contrails.