Vacation to Kansas

This is my last day of work before I leave for vacation, and never has a day gone by so slow! It is now 4:02, and I have decided to leave at 4:30, just in time to catch the bus home. Once I arrive at my car, I will then get in it and head back to Portland, and a party for a co-worker who is leaving us at the end of the month. Very sad for us, good for him. I also need to arrange a ride to the airport. Should have gotten that taken care of sooner. Just realized today that I didn’t have a ride. May need to schedule a taxi.

Tomorrow morning I will register for my boarding pass at exactly 10:10, which is 24 hours before I leave. I’ve set the alarm on my Blackberry. What did we do before we had all these little helpful devices? Then I will have a dentist appointment at 11:00, pick up my prescription in the pharmacy afterwards and head out to get a little shopping done. I have to get a presents for my grandchildren, buy travel sized (or at least something smaller than the super economy sized) shampoo and conditioner. Oh yeah, and I have to go purchase a new camera, because mine broke over the weekend. Ugggh!

In the afternoon I will do the last bit of laundry, plant some tomatoes, and have a good bye conversation with the cat and the chickens, my girls. Then I will do my packing, watch Idol, and get some sleep.

When I would fly to Hawaii, it was a five hour flight and all there was to see was water. It was like the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” or something like that. I was on a plane so I obviously had access to a drink, of many kinds. But, because the flight was 5 hours long and I didn’t want to use the on-flight facilities, I kept my fluid intake to the bear minimum for the 24 hours before my flight landed on the island.

My flight to Kansas is much shorter, but will still be planning my fluid intake to avoid the on-flight facilities. Unlike the flight to Hawaii, there should be plenty to see outside my window, so I don’t have to stay up all night so I can sleep through the flight. Yeah!!

I will fly into the Kansas City airport. This will be my second time. The last time I was 13, and it was my first time to travel by plane. Because my parents didn’t what to have to change planes, they chose a flight that took to Des Moines, Iowa without a plane change, but it stopped at every airport between there and Houston. Kansas City happened to be one, and be the time we make it there, I was really hungry and starting to feel a bit sick. The attendant, for stewardess as we called them then, suggested I get off and grab something from the vending machine and come right back. We had plenty of time for that. So I did.

I found the vending machines just where she said they would be, quickly made my selections, and hot footed it back to the gate. The gate was closed and my blue Branaff was taxing away. I had a melt down. There was shriking and crying and all kinds of goings on. Finally the gate attendant settled me down and pointed to a blue Branaff at the next gate and said, “That’s your plane.” I said, “Oh” I felt like a complete idiot, which I was, and to make matter worse I couldn’t just hope on my plane and avoid all the stares. No, I had to wait for two other plane to clear the terminal before I could reboard my flight. It was the longest 5 minutes of my life. I’m hoping to comport myself better this time around.

Let me off the plane

The other day, on the bus, I was talking to one of the other regular riders. We’re both from Texas and we really enjoy visiting with one another. That day I was telling her about the 5 hour and 7 hour layover for flights from Portland to Kansas City. We got to talking about plane flights in general. During the conversation she laughed and made the comment about flight time and layover time is added onto the 5 hours you will have to wait on the tarmac to just take off from an airport. If you figure that I will have to take off from two different airports that could add another 10 hours to my traveling time.

We laughed but you know it’s always a real possibility, which is a really sad comment on the airline industry. I’ve already made up my mind that if I’m going to be stuck on the tarmac waiting for a flight to take off, I’m just ringing the attendant over and telling them to call the FBI out to meet me at the door, because I’ll be getting ready to throw a hissy fit. I’m not about to wait for the toilets to fill up, the air conditioner to be turned off, and the drinks to be consumed. The older I get the less I tolerate confined spaces, small bathrooms, people with attitudes (read attendants here) and asinine policies.

The truth is that the airlines should have a special file on me concerning this issue. Think about it, I can be a bit out spoken (Ok, you can take the laugher down a notch!), and I do know how to make a scene. (Really do need to quite laughing so hard) Really, they don’t want to leave me in the population of passengers. I’m a community organizer, that has to represent their worst nightmares!