What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

“What a long strange trip it’s been”- the Grateful Dead

Those words rang so true this past week on my vacation cruise to the Bahamas. Yes, me and nine other women (one being my Mother) cruised through the Caribbean stopping at 3 different islands of the Bahamas for 4 nights. We left out of Miami on Monday (yes, the same day that Tropical Storm Fay showed up) and arrived back on Friday morning… me and 9 other women ranging in age from 42 to 70+. And what a week it was…
First off, let me just say that I did not find out about the tropical storm brewing near Haiti until late Friday night so the entire weekend was spent worrying if the airline would be flying to Miami on Monday morning or if the cruise would be cancelled all because of Fay. I was checking the “projected path” of that storm almost every two hours to see how much closer it was to the Keys and how fast was she moving. My Mother arrived on Saturday afternoon as well so between the worrying, entertaining her and preparing for the trip I was just about stressed out before my vacation had even started! Our plane did fly to Miami on Monday after all… Miami was rainy and it turns out the cruise line decided to leave earlier than scheduled so our 8am flight was not a wasted idea after all! We were on the ship by 12noontime and the ladies were itching to get the party started. Well half the ladies started ordering bottles of wine and got loopy quick and the rest of us checked into our state rooms and waited on our luggage… one scary moment was when we were hanging out on our balcony and watching the crew throwing the luggage from the carts to the ship… somehow they misinterpreted their shot and dropped about 10+ pieces of luggage into the water of the bay! And then they spent over 10 minutes fishing out some poor souls’ bags… we were just praying it was not our clothes! I rationalized at that moment that a bag of wet clothes might not really even matter if it rains our entire trip anyway… But, the rain only hung out all of Monday and half of Tuesday. By Wednesday the sun was out but the winds were high and the ocean was still choppy. We did finally make it into our bathing suits and onto a nice beach on Thursday (which happened to also be my birthday) so it was a great day after all!
To keep from writing a book about the trip, I will just list some of my highlights of the week spent at sea:

· Always keep the top down on the toilets BEFORE you flush! Or it might just suck you into the bowl…
· One of the “oldest” ladies on the trip managed to get way too tipsy on the first night and lost the “bridge” (teeth) on the right side of her mouth!
· Escargot is not that that bad! Kinda tastes like mushrooms or oysters…
· Older women refuse to walk the stairs to one floor above or below! They always want to take the elevator…
· Non-Americans refer to skim milk as “skinny cow”… thanks to all of Judy’s White Russians orders
· It is really hard to walk a straight line when the ship is rocking from the choppy waves
· Birthdays are a really, really big ordeal on a cruise ship… they let us order lobster tails just for my special birthday dinner!
· I think my Mother is a bit of a hypochondriac… she complained the entire trip about motion sickness….
· Oh, and she is a really loud snorer too! I did not sleep the entire trip!

I did forget to mention that the “choppy movements” of the ship really only happened on the first night. As a matter of fact, I remember telling Hubby the next day that I woke up at one point in the night on Monday night and was actually holding onto the bed with both hands and arms to keep from falling off the bed because it felt like the boat was leaning way too far to the left. As it turns out the boat was “listing” due to the bad weather/stormy sea and when the boat leaned or listed as they called it, all of the rainwater from the top deck poured into the main atrium of the boat! They had carpet dryers out the entire trip trying to dry out from that first night! Talk about scary… I am just so glad my Mother slept through all of it.
All in all, the trip was fun. However, I wish Hubby could have been there instead of me and 9 other women. Every lady in the group was so different and each had their own idea of what we should or shouldn’t be doing… it was hard to do any thing all together. I was so glad to get off that ship and make our way home.
Friday was a complete nightmare from the time we stepped off the ship… we made it to our pre-paid tour bus… and then we sat for over an hour waiting for the bus to take us to the airport! Once we got to the airport, checking in was a breeze but, then our flight was not for over 3 hours! We finally boarded our plane around 2:30pm and then we sat on the runway for over 2 hours because of some storm NW of Miami! I thought I was going to die! I sat in that rinky-dink window seat for over 4 hours and my Mother was no help. She was not a happy camper about it either and I just had to sit there and hope they would let us go soon enough. I finally made it home around 8pm on Friday night and Hubby was waiting for me with birthday gifts… Happy Birthday to me!

Another Day, Another Trip to Denver

So I traveled back to Denver again this week. My flight to Denver left Atlanta at 11am on Wednesday morning and what a trip it was for me. First of all, I went to Boot Camp early that morning and then returned home to shower. Then, I traveled to the airport and when I went to check-in at the kiosk, the Boarding Ticket they issued me had no seat assignment. Instead it said in really BIG letters: SEAT REQUEST. So of course I was instantly nervous that I might not get a seat on the plane! I made it through security so quickly that I got to the gate almost an hour and a half before flight time. As soon as I got to the gate, I stood in line two or three times to try and get my seat assignment- to no avail. They were not talking to any passengers about the Denver flight until one hour before flight time… Eventually, I got my seat assignment and waited to board. Since we boarded around 10:45am, I decided it was too early to eat and would just buy a bag of animal crackers on the flight to tide me over until I arrived in Denver. Well, wouldn’t you know that idea backfired on me… First of all, the crew did not even start the cart service until after one hour in the air…. So by the time the cart got to my row I was STARVING. I could have eaten the tail end of a horse! I had my dollar ready, passed it to the cart lady, ordered my animal crackers and anxiously waited. As she is handing me the bag, she says, “Ma’am, you can buy these but, you cannot eat these in your seat”. “Excuse me??” She says, “Unfortunately, there is a passenger behind you that has a severe peanut allergy and no one in the three rows in front of them or the three rows behind them can consume any product that MIGHT have been packaged in a plant where they also package peanuts”. Now I am livid… on top of my starvation- NOT a good mix in Kelly’s world at this moment. I ask, “your kidding, right?”. No, she is not. I then venomously reply, “Well, is there ANY thing on that cart I can eat within their guidelines?” She only allows the free cookies. Now I am simply peeved. I tell her to give me the cookies and the crackers and be gone. Well, you should have heard the elderly lady in the row behind me when she got the news about her cheese crackers… it was obvious she had not heard my conversation with the cart lady and she was ANGRY. I pondered this whole situation the rest of the trip. Why couldn’t that person put on a mask? Or an oxygen mask? Why not move them to the rear area away from the 40+ other passengers you are infecting with your issue? Why did they not tell the 40+ others this at the gate so we could grab a bite to eat before boarding? Poor planning on every one’s part if you ask me... but, they cannot help it so what is the point in getting so upset, right?
After landing, I grab my shuttle to the rental car place. I notice the lack of vehicles parked in the rental lot when I get there and start to worry when I get inside the building and find the waiting line about 100 folks deep. What if they run out of rentals? After an hour of waiting, I get up to the counter and the guys asks me if I would be willing to take a small SUV instead of the Intermediate level sedan I was signed up for (at the same rate). I agree- and they give me a Hummer! I am in shock. I tell him that I cannot drive a Hummer to work because every one will make it into a big deal and joke incessantly about it. He just says, “Enjoy yourself! You are in Colorado!” And I reply, “Whoopdee Doo, I was here last week too so who cares about Colorado?” So off I go to Denver in my white Hummer H3 rental. I call Hubby and tell him what happened. He just laughs and tells me to be sure and park it out front of the office so every one can see it. Needless to say, I parked it between two large white pick-ups and hope that it is hidden enough.
One of my co-workers from Atlanta and I had a good time taking it to supper and around Denver that night. Unfortunately, we were not the low bidder on the project we bid on Thursday, so the trip did not really have a happy ending. And then, my flight home got a late start from the Denver airport, so we did not arrive back into Atlanta until almost 1:00 am… What a crock.

My Plane Perspective

Now that I have been on three trips in the past 2 ½ weeks- two to Denver and one to the Keys, I am just about had it with the whole airport scenario. These days it seems to be such a time consuming task to fly somewhere whether it is a quick day trip or up to a weeklong trip. From my perspective (based on these 3 trips), most airport employees do not enjoy their job and are in no hurry to help speed up my getting to my gate on time. Unless your flight is before 7am, you might as well get to the airport at least 2.5 hours before your flight time- otherwise, good luck. I caught an article just this morning in the AJC titled, “Airport Seeks Shorter Lines”… The bi-line stated, “Officials and lawmakers press federal administrators to address insufficient staffing of security checkpoint”. All I can is: AMEN. In the meantime, believe it or not, I am getting on another plane this Friday morning heading back to Denver and will fly back on Sunday morning. This time they are flying the all of the salaried personnel from our entire Southeast Division out there for our Annual Operations Conference… not sure exactly how this weekend will transpire… but, it better be worth it considering they are taking up my entire weekend. The key word in that sentence being “MY”…. I just hope they do not stick me in a middle seat between two HUGE co-workers so my movements are limited in fear of touching my seatmates. Yes, being the not-so-small person that I am, space is very, very precious to me on airplanes. I know that on our trip to Key West, Hubby and I had a really hard time fitting shoulder to shoulder in our two seats without sticking out into the aisle. And then you get creamed by every person going to the restroom or by the drink cart when it passes. I have often wondered why they just don’t add ONE more foot to the width of the plane so you could have a mere 6 extra inches in each side for seats. How much trouble would that really be? As much as the airlines charge per flight, surely they can afford it. Of course, losing weight is always an option too I suppose. (Giggle)