No Plane on Sunday

No Plane on Sunday Maybe one on Monday Just a hopeless situation Make the best of it that's all you can do I have often affirmed the phophetic utterances of Jimmy Buffett and this is another one of those times. Luckily, there is a plane on Monday though it's taking off 45 minutes after it's supposed to, meaning that we'll never make the connection in Atlanta. I was able to book us on a later flight home although God knows where our bags are going to end up. "Eventually we'll make it home," Sarah said as we boarded. And evenutally we will. When you travel a lot, most of the time it goes remarkably well. In spite of all of the ways that the airlines have screwed up the flying experience ... less flight options, more jam paced planes, $7 cocktails and $8 dollar stale sandwhiches ... what are you going to do? Especially if you want to see the world? So you have to spend some time in Travel Hell. Travel Hell now starts with booking your flight. Delta is no longer ready when you are but is ready when it is, so you have to book your time to fit in with their time. On this trip that meant a Red-Eye overnight flight with 12 inches of leg space. That's hard to do when you're wide awake on a five our flight. So we're on Alaska Airlines, a Delta partner for the daytime flight. Stage two of Travel Hell is T.S.A. which now has four times as many employers who it had just a month ago. You have to take off your jacket, belt, shoes and everything out of your pockets. Then a bored man waves you through the screening device which now requires that you spread your legs and hold your hands above your head. You look like you're being robbed, which of course you are. On a good day, Travel Hell ends here. On a bad day, it's just starting to get hot. For us, it started getting hot on Saturday night when my cell phone rang as we stood on the dock waiting for the sea plane. The nice voice on the other end of the line informed me that our flight was canceled due to bad weather, though it was pleasant where we were standing. This call came five minutes before we were scheduled to take off. Surely the airlines had been aware of this bad weather before now. "I see," I slowly replied. "Well, let me think about this ..." I was saying when Sarah jerked the phone out of my hand. "Let a northern girl handle it," she explained before exploding in the phone, "I don't have time to deal with you. Give me my money back! I'll deal with you later" Seeing that she had things under control, I looked at Conner who was looking at me. "You want a beer?" he asked. I nodded. So we made our way off the dock, dragging a loud Sarah along with us, and went to a party. The next morning I learned that there was no plane on Sunday so ... we went to Seattle and found a wonderful place called ... Elliott's! We highly recommend it. Then to accomodate the airlines, we got up at 5:30 this morning and made our way through parts one and two of Travel Hell. Then to torture us a bit, the airlines delayed our plane for 45 minutes and you know the rest of the story. Having said all of that, we saw whales up close and personal. We saw Eagles, otters, a Camel (why there was a Camel on San Juan island is a mystery to us but it's there), snow covered mountains, and the North Pacific Ocean. There were two quaint seaside harbor towns that are postcard perfect. We were with fun people. And Sarah and I are doing it together, rolling with the punches and enjoying the ride. There's lots to do when we get home. After a summer of constant travel, we're ready to spend the rest of the season on Tybee Island having cookouts, visiting with the kids, taking the girls to the beach, reuniting with the Carnival of Friends and taking Goddess and Winston, the little gay dog, on walks. We'll do bike rides to The Bored Meeting and find music to listen to while we dance. We're both ready for this vacation to be over. So that vacation can begin.