Musings of a Florida-Bound Traveler

Here I am at the airport! Home, sweet, LaGuardia...

Why is it that when you leave home three hours before your flight, you end up sitting in the terminal for two of those hours; but if you leave two hours before the flight, you make it with seconds to spare?
Honestly- the last time I went through security so quickly I was in Albany...where there are only three terminals, one consisting of exactly three gates, another of eight.

I think I remembered to pack everything this time- including my list of everything I packed. I probably ought to start putting a copy of that into each suitcase...

TV time! Film Rachel for her videography class.

Sitting, waiting...enter first pack of Pesach travelers. Note bug-eyed lady with cool shirt (Dear Dorothy: Hate Oz, Took the Shoes: Find Your Own *&%$ Way Home. -Love Toto)- at other end of room, starting first sandwich.

Call Brussels and Kagans- got homesick for the Holy Land.

Second wave of Pesach travelers. I go to check out the spread at the newsstand; cave and buy the new Jodi Picoult book; somehow find the fortitude to save it for the flight.

Look over at barefoot man. Nice shoes- those old-fashioned looking brown brogans. There's a portrait forming in my head- a little kid, just learning to walk, in overalls- wearing those shoes and looking down at his foot with one foot slightly lifted in curiosity.
Realize that I can't take that picture without the kid, overalls, lights and background, permission to use the shoes...oh, yeah- and a working camera.

Bug-eyed lady is on sandwich #2.
Third wave of Pesach travelers.

Frum family sits at next bank of chairs. Cute blonde two-year-old moseys on over and promptly makes friends with them...and the lady across from us, and me, and the flight crew...shows off her Nemo and Dory fruit snacks.

Bug-eyed lafy on sandwich #3.
Announcement: "Attention, all passengers for flight 377 to Atlanta: Look out the window! That is your plane! We'll try for a really quick servicing and get you on there as soon as possible."

10:03 flight now scheduled for 10:23 AM...we're assured that we'll still arrive on time, but keep in mind our 31-minute stopover in Atlanta (the largest and second busiest airport in the world). Hopefully we'll be in the same terminal. Please, G-d...please.

Bug-eyed lady finished breakfast. Now staring vacantly at the wall. Looks oddly complacent. Drugs?

Boarding the plane!!!

On the plane...ask the flight attendant if we'll be landing on time, or close to, as I have a connection. Her reply? "Sorry!"...and laughs. Find my seat- all the way in the back, window. Tov.

If that kid in front of me lowers her seat back, I'll kick it back into position. She and her two sisters are blasting the plane radio, belting out some tuneless Miley Cyrus song.
Yay! Empty seat next to me!
Yay! Leaving the gate!

Hm...maybe we can manage to drop a couple of these little girls off at 40,000 feet. And their parents are totally spacing out.

Waiting to take off. Wondering why the plane is, literally, moving backwards.

Remember that 31-minute stopover?
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are currently on line for takeoff, approximately number 30-40 in line. We expect to get into the air in another half hour or so.
Grrrr.
Maybe we'll be on Tova's connecting flight.

Take off 11:20. How I managed to fall asleep with those pint-sized preadolescent screechy buggers hollering, ("OOOH, we're moving! No, we're not! Can you close the window? Uh, uh! Look, here we go! I'm nauseous! What if we don't make the plane? We'll have to stay in Geoorgiaaa! Roll down the window shade! Life's what you make it...tune to number twenny, there's a really good song! No!!! Go to 31! I see the Statue of Liberty- Aaahhhhh!!! Eeeek!)- is completely beyond me.

Yeah. I think we'll be aiming for Tova's flight.

And we're exactly one half-hour late. Oops. Get off plane, immediately are handed new tickets for the next connecting flight- yay, Airtran!
Hang out at terminal for a zillion years...realize that Tova's on Delta- whoops, guess we won't be on her flight.

Finally home!
Yay, Florida!

Epic Saga of The Three-Day Chag to follow...
-SA