I have, once again, taken to the friendly skies and have, once again, had adventures along the way. My recent trip to Vermont to visit my sister, Sheila, at her lake home did not start out well. The car service I use (because my children don’t trust me to drive further than five miles from home and since I’m not crazy about driving much farther than that, I pretend to bow reluctantly to their wishes). I don’t think I finished that sentence – the parantheses got in the way. I’ll try again. The car service picked me up right on time to ferry me to Des Moines. I opted to leave in the afternoon and stay in a hotel by the airport overnight since my plane left early in the morning.
What should have been a two-hour-and-change drive turned into a four-and-a-half hour marathon featuring two lanes of traffic on the interstate totally blocked because of a pile-up. I was so glad I wasn’t trying to catch a plane that evening!
However, my relief was short lived. I got to the airport by 6:30 a.m. for my 8:30 a.m. flight. Plenty of time, right? Well, sadly, the fates didn’t take into consideration my affinity for the New York Times crossword puzzle. As I sat at my gate working the puzzle, I lost all sense of time and place. When I finally took my face out of the paper to look at my watch, it was 8:25 and there was no one around. Seems they had changed my gate but I didn’t hear the announcement. I took off running, dragging my carry-on bag behind me, to the end of the walk-way, down some stairs and to the right gate just in time to wave good-bye to my plane.
The next flight to O’Hare where I was to catch another plane to Albany, NY, didn’t leave until 3 p.m. O well. I stocked up on candy bars (did you know M&M now makes an M&M milk chocolate bar?) and read an entire Mary Higgins Clark mystery. Had to call the car service that was picking me up in Albany to give them my new arrival time. Also had to let my sister know plus all of my children because they’d find out eventually anyway. Sigh.
When I finally landed in Albany, there had been some storms and the power at the airport had gone out. It came back on, but the baggage carousel wasn’t working. For the next half-hour, airline employees lugged our bags two at a time from the plane to the baggage area. Then when I finally climbed into the car that was taking me to Sheila’s, the GPS decided I’d probably rather go to Woodstock and took my driver 40 miles out of the way. I was supposed to be at Sheila’s at 2:30 in the afternoon. I staggered up to her cottage at 1:15 a.m.
My children have now forbidden me to go anywhere near a crossword puzzle when I’m traveling.
I think they’re awfully bossy.