Flexibility

Sometimes life throws you a few curve-balls. Some times you can see them coming, most of the times you don't. You take a deep breath, close your eyes (or don't), and swing with all your might. Some times you miss and sometimes you hit a grand slam.

Other times...seats fill up on airplanes and you have to turn to plan B or C or D or Q.

When people hear I am married to a pilot, one of the first things people say is "I bet you guys can fly anywhere you want for free". Yes and no. Sometimes you hit that gram slam and sometimes you strike out. Sometimes it would just be easier to purchase a ticket. But each time we fly standby...we walk away with a story.
Our latest "story" just makes me laugh. Believe me, I was not laughing for most of it, but it got to a point where all I could was just laugh at our situation.

The goal: Fly together from SLC to Atlanta. Split at Atlanta, Chris going on to training in Kentucky and me flying on to PA. We wrapped things up for a month away in SLC and packed as light as we could. Two small carry-ons each. Pretty good considering Chris had his uniform and me a bridesmaids dress and shoes. The flight to Atlanta was wide open the evening we planned to leave. Our flight was scheduled for 1am. There was a huge chance we would get first class. Another flight was due to leave at 11:45pm that was mostly full. So far so good. We arrived early at the airport and killed time in a quiet space. I was already starting to unravel so we tried to stay as quiet as possible until we needed to get to our gate.

Fast forward several hours. The 11:45 flight was delayed for two hours... That meant that everybody who was flying stand-by on that flight would switch to our flight since ours would now leave earlier. As time went on the 11:45 flight's estimated time of departure got pushed back even further to 4am. With that big of a delay the airline moved as many paying passengers to our flight as they could until the entire Boeing 767 was filled up. Ugh. It looks like no standby passengers will be able to go to Atlanta until 4am and we are running out of options. By this time, the train back into the city, and our home, was closed. It was way too late at night and we did not want to bother any of our friends. A taxi was crazy expensive and we had a hard time contemplating getting a taxi in our home city anyway. It was not quite an emergency yet. 

We considered a flight to JFK but it looked iffy and it was boarding (according to the computers.) But then, how would be get from JFK to PHL? The flight from JFK to PHL did not look very promising either.

It was 12:30pm, we trudged (is that even a word?) down to the Atlanta gate downhearted and beyond tired. One of us (me) could not sleep during nap time hours earlier that day. I was already unraveled and felt very vulnerable. We were about to accept our fate and wait until 4am when we walked by a gate and noticed that the flight to JFK was just about to board. We thought it had already left, but it ended up being delayed as well. That would get us at least in the right direction and we would be on a plane and sleeping earlier. On a whim we asked if there were seats open. The gate agent paused for a moment, did a little typing on his computer, and then without saying more than a couple words handed us two first class boarding passes and we found ourselves aboard a plane bound for JFK. Sure beats sitting in an airport until 4am!

The moon was full that night and that is always a joy to see when flying. The clouds get lit up with silver light from above. We slept and I tried to survive someone's need to keep spraying themselves with chemical laden body spray. Good thing I brought a mask along!  When we arrived at JFK we had to decide to try for the PHL flight or just rent a car and drive the almost 3 hours to my parents house. We thought it would be fun to drive. Ignorance is bliss right? We had no clue it would cost us our arms and legs to cross over into Staten Island. New Jersey robbed us twice (thanks to a faulty GPS instruction) and thank goodness the PA Turnpike was kind to us. 

We were excited about the possibility of seeing the Statue of Liberty from the road (or bridge rather) and several NYC sites while we drove through Brooklyn and Staten Island. But unfortunately it was too foggy to see much of anything. I felt a chill down my spine as we passed Coney Island and crossed onto Staten Island. As a moldy I tend to have "spidy sense" If I am in an area that was underwater I can feel it. That area was hit hard by Sandy. Good thing we did not make any stops until New Jersey!

It was pouring rain when we stopped in New Jersey. We stopped to breathe. Stopped to gather ourselves and either cry or laugh. We just had to chuckle. We said we wanted adventure, but never thought it would look like this. We sat there in the pouring rain picking at our cold chicken salad and lettuce. We could have been super grumpy and bit each others' heads off. But instead we laughed. We laughed at being so naive (even though it was super hard to admit - I had NO clue we would have to pay so much!), we laughed that is was pouring rain, we laughed at it all. We said "I love you" and "thank you for being kind and flexible" to each other.

After that brief stop, we felt refreshed (our declarations to each other helped or it might have been the doing of Starbucks) and drove on with more life in our souls. We ended up getting off one exit early on the PA Turnpike and drove through Valley Forge National Park. Chris knows how to feed his wife's soul. The green rolling hills were life giving. We followed Rt. 23 into the lands that I know well and then found ourselves sitting at my Grandmother's kitchen table. All roads lead to precious Grandmothers. 

Flexibly. A much used word in our vocabulary. We would soon learn that flexibility would be greatly needed for the next month....