So Teag and I don't often get chances to be able to get away alone. We try and sneak an overnighter here and there, but that's usually about it. Consequently, when the opportunity does present itself we jump on it like a spider monkey. A few months ago, one of Teag's bosses asked him to sell his current airplane and help him upgrade to a new one. Fast forward to the future where said plane has been purchased, but is currently residing in DC.
Teag: "I need to fly to DC to pick up the boss's plane, and fly it home across the country. I'll be gone a few days."
Me: "I'm coming."
And that's pretty much how it went down. My sisters-in-law were kind enough to take our kids so that Teag and I could fly to DC together, and spend some quality one-on-one time flying cross-country. We'd done this once before when Teag picked up a plane in Tennessee, and it had been a memorable trip.
Oh, this trip was memorable, but not in a good way. More like an "I'm sure I'll laugh about it later kind of way." Last Wednesday we hopped on a commercial flight to DC that was scheduled to leave at four pm. We had a 35 minute layover in Chicago, and figured we'd grab some dinner then. We arrived at the airport way too early, and ended up waiting in the terminal for close to two hours before we finally started boarding. Then as everyone is finally seated, the flight attendant comes on and tells us that we can't push back from the gate due to a security breach. They don't know how long we'll have to wait. An hour later, we're finally cleared, with the message that everyone will make their connections, except those who are heading to DC. Super.
Thankfully, there was a pretty awesome tailwind that helped the plane make up some of the time, and we arrived in Chicago almost exactly at 8:40 pm: right when the doors should have been closing on our connecting flight. I elbowed my way through a few blue hairs and business men, trying to make my way outside to get them to hold the flight if by some miracle it hadn't left yet. We were in luck, they were just boarding. Unfortunately, that's about where our luck ran out. We sat on the runway for another forty minutes, delaying our already-late arrival in DC by as much. It was midnight before we landed. We made our very hungry way to the car rental place, picked up a car, and began what should have been a 20 minute drive to Manassas and sweet, sleepy oblivion. Instead we drove around, lost, for the next two and a half hours. Teag had brought an airplane GPS that was supposed to have roads on it. It ended up being completely useless. We stopped at a 7/11, and stereotypically enough, the clerk barely spoke English. We called the hotel, and he gave us misleading directions. We were exhausted. Finally we found the place, after narrowly missing several deer, and fell into bed at 3 am.
Our slumber was shortlived, as our room was situated right by an exit, and everyone in the hotel seemed to want to leave by 8 am at that exact door. Teag had to meet the broker at ten anyway, so we were up much earlier than sanity would dictate appropriate. You can see how tired we are.
The rest of the trip was more of the same; we never ate a meal at a normal meal time, we battled 50 knot headwinds almost the entire flight home, and we had major weather encroaching on us from either side, significantly narrowing our margin of safe flying time. As if that wasn't enough, the second night after we'd checked into our hotel, unpacked a bunch of our stuff, and were getting ready for bed, Teag says to me, "What does a bedbug look like?"
Oh yes. We actually
saw it crawling across the sheets. Thankfully only one, but one is more than enough. It was already 1 am, and we had no car, otherwise I would have left the hotel completely. Instead we asked to be moved to another room, but if they're in one, you have to wonder about all the other rooms. I felt like things were crawling on me all night.
We finally rolled into Salt Lake around nine on Friday night, completely exhausted, sore, and having felt like the entire trip was a bust. Very little "quality" anything, let alone time was had. From the time we got on that commercial flight, til the time we arrived home was about 53 hours. Nearly half of that was spent in an airplane.
But I will say one thing. Look at this view.
