trip journal #1

Trip journal 1 2/20/2008


I was tempted to write this out on paper, but as we don’t have a chance to use the internet on the laptop anyways, thought I’d blow the battery on the plane and type it out….so much easier to cut and paste it into the blog later!

The morning started off interesting, to say the least….I woke up after 3 hours of sleep or so, and went ahead and got ready to go…Mark was up shortly after me (I have this habit of waking him up…heehee) so we went ahead and got ready to go, even though we were an hour early. I did a quick check of emails before heading out, and had a nice little note in our inbox from the airline that things were all scheduled on time for the journey.

We had a non-eventful trip to the airport….I was grateful that we flew out of XNA, only an hour away (or so) in NorthWest Arkansas. It was warmer than I thought (we’re due another set of ice storm days on Thursday and Friday…safely after we are gone.). The airport was hustling with people and we were happy to get the trip really going.

When it was our turn to check in at the counter, the attendant suggested that Mark go ahead and scan his passport at the kiosk (right in front of her desk at the counter). I guess they think that it will genuinely go faster for us that way….but SURPRISE!! What WE got was an immediate notice that one of our flights was CANCELLED. Really. It was the flight from Tokyo to G, it suddenly went from a FULL flight to not having a crew to fly the plane….and in a totally foreign land to us…and we didn’t even plan by bringing along an English/Japanese dictionary!

Of course she hmmmm’d and haaaa’d, looked at her screen, talked to one of the other attendants, tried to come up with a plan. She mentioned us not flying out till later in the afternoon on American, or another airline, that would take us through California, and I secretly wondered “hmmmm, could it lay over there….or in Hawaii??” Then she used her better judgment and made a call to their call center, where someone found that the leg of the flight we needed to take was almost identical to one being flown by All Nippon Airline (now, have YOU heard of that….because we sure haven’t!). Of course, we graciously took the ticket vouchers (without a seat assignment) and headed down through security, realizing our day was starting off in the right direction, although just a little more adventure on the calendar. 

We were able to call J and let her have a head’s up that there was change in the air, even if we don’t know if it’s a bad one or not. We’ll ultimately have the last night to catch up if there is a delay, as our last flight in the country will not leave until Friday morning….giving us plenty of time to get there….we think. ;)

We had an uneventful, but cramped flight to Minneapolis/St Paul, and had a couple hours there to eat, try to get on line, then call our other daughter Melissa and have her do the leg work for us. The airline is a partner with one of the larger carriers….United….and she was able to get some information from their web site. We think it will be a larger plane, since it takes off 20 minutes sooner, and arrives earlier still than our original itinerary. If luggage can make the change, we should be able to also. Only time will tell.

The flight now is going fine…smooth…pretty full for a 747….and people are upbeat at this point, which is nice. We’ve had our “dinner”….both had chicken that was described in the menu as “roasted chicken breast with asiago and parmesan crust, carrot and rice mix, green beans…” but in actuality was chicken, green beans, carrots and mashed potatoes…..and it all tasted the same, and shared the same texture! I’m amazed at how they can do that! Mark was lucky to get my shrimp also, and we did get some nice fresh fruit…cantaloupe, honeydew melon, and a large, sweet, fresh, strawberry. YUM. The roll and butter were not bad either. 

Now it’s time to gel….we’ve played Five Crowns (Mark was winning so much that I forfeited the last hand for dinner), and watched a few “shorts” on the video system. I’m listening to the on board jazz station and Mark’s got his cd player going….I think he’s trying to sleep. We’re grateful that the plane is much larger than the first one, and we have an extra seat that’s empty in our center row, so he’s taking a little extra space to spread out. I’ve got my shoes off, backpack as a foot stool, jacket rolled up behind my back…..only 8 hours or so to go on THIS flight….it will be just fine!!

I guess I’ll save some battery power for the mystery flight….I’m curious what it will really be like. I continue to look at this as a great adventure and not have any expectations….and so far it’s been fun and exciting….and not really stressful in a bad way, just changes and unknowns. Mark handles it much better than I do, but I haven’t had a meltdown or anything….heehee….

Grace and peace…
m