On the Road Again

Half a year. That's the last time I posted anything on my blog. It's time to START AGAIN. They say that you can't become a writer if you read about how to write. You can only become a writer if you write. At one level, I know this. At another level, I ignore it. Am I destined to be a writer? Unlikely, but possible (IF you can be destined to be anything in your early 50s!)… Would I LIKE to be a writer? I suppose so.

It was a great encouragement to hear from two friends after the writing of our 2010 Christmas letter: "When are you going to start writing on your blog again. I miss it." And, "You're a really good writer." (Never mind the fact that said reader has only read like, one thing I've ever written… but I was flattered and motivated, nonetheless.)

Which brings me to today—On the Road Again.

I won't recount the collective details of the radical travel calendar of our immediate family, but I will say that today I'm sitting in one of my childhood homes with my mom. I have been making more frequent trips here for all the right reasons. But "here" is still a rather obscure location when it comes to the Grand Travel Plan of America's airlines. It is simply hard to get here… from, well, most anyplace. Thus, I experienced a fleeting sense of discouragement when after boarding my first plane this morning, sipping from my water bottle and settling in to read the paper, the kind lady next to me informed me that we all needed to deplane. Unfixable mechanical problems. First time I have ever had to step off the plane immediately after boarding. But, better that option than sitting on the tarmac for four hours.

I was already in what I refer to as "Travel Zen," but this sent me in deeper. For me "Travel Zen" simply refers to the manner in which I move through time and space knowing I have either little or no control over the timing and circumstances and therefore it is useless and completely counterproductive to get stressed out over anything. I become a semi pleasant zombie-like adult who is going with the flow. I have traveled this way for many years. I nearly always arrive at my destination, though not always at the appointed time. Along the way, there are people to meet and discoveries to be made. Though, honestly, flying between a Midwestern hub and the Destination the Airlines Forgot, I didn't expect too many discoveries. I was right. The ones I did make were:

• Wearing a turtleneck and 650 down filled vest was the wrong idea. Dead of winter or not. The change in gates and airline assignments after we had to deplane, meant I had to hoof it to the Very Last Gate in the entire airport. I arrived in time, but a sweaty mess. And I had to do this in not one, but two airports, resulting in two sweaty mess episodes.
  
• Just because you get dropped off at the terminal where there is a covering doesn't mean you won't be subject to climbing up and down stairs and traipsing through slush, snow, ice and thick salt to board, unboard, reboard, unboard, etc…. I was a small, salt covered dripping mess three times. There were no covered walkways to be seen on these little commercial, go-out-onto-the-tarmac-to-find-the plane routes.
  
• Propeller planes require that everyone sit in the back to provide ballast for the heavier front of the plane. All 10 of us. Back rows.
  
• Propeller planes on commercial routes in the dead of winter are likely to result in crabby flight attendants.
  
• Traveling with a 17" laptop is a royal pain. In order to justify that royal pain, it is necessary to update one's blog.
  
• Arrival and Departure monitors must be really, really expensive since airports now seem to use them very judiciously. I used to be able to use these handy devices to maneuver my way around airports, but alas, there were none to be found today. Maybe this was a cruel joke because I was heading for the Destination the Airlines Forgot. Oh.
  
• Travel Zen, a bag of Trader Joe's trail mix and a good book are all you really need when you're on the road again.