Always an Adventure

This was the view out my window for an hour and a half
at the gate in Baltimore as mechanics checked the plane.

It's about 6 am Mountain Standard Time or Pacific Daylight Time, whichever you want to call it. Such chronological ambiguity must mean that I'm in Phoenix, because Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Savings Time. I'm supposed to be in Provo, UT, but I'm not. Yet. I'm in the middle of a Travel Adventure. Thankfully, as T. A.'s go, this one has been pretty tame.

Last evening I got on a plane that was indeed bound for Phoenix, and all seemed well. Then, in that offhand manner of speaking that pilots must learn in Pilot School, we were told that there was a valve in the wing mechanism that had to be checked. That's important, so I could roll with it. At first Captain Relaxed gave the impression that it would be ever so quick and we'd be on our way. A few minutes later when they opened the doors to let in fresh air and started beverage service, I kinda figured it was a lost cause. I only had an hour to start with to make my connection in Phoenix and as the minutes ticked away, so did my hope that I'd be on the second plane. Eventually they just announced that because it was the end of the flying day, we should  plan on getting to our destinations the next day. Because I was in a mindset to be positive and also because I was sitting next to this awesome woman who was pleasantly chatty and upbeat, I didn't even have time to have an anxiety attack.  My phone was acting sketchy, so Eric was able to make a couple of calls for me and get me booked on this morning's flight before the rush last night.  In the end we took off about 90 minutes late and got to Phoenix almost two hours late because of a headwind. I sat on that plane in my assigned two square feet of floor space for 7 hours. As you can imagine, I got a lot of knitting done.

USAirways put us up in the Twin Palms Hotel, which was exactly as you are picturing it. Exactly. But it was free and better than sleeping on airport chairs, so, though I will stop short of gushing over the amenities, I will say that I'm grateful they had vacancies. They also had free shuttle service to and from the airport, so as I say, this was pretty painless for me. My only sadness is that my weekend with my kids has been cut a bit short, but only by a night. 

So, as long as the flight is not overbooked and I get an actual seat, I'll be winging my way over the Grand Canyon and Moab and a little town called Levan, UT where my dad's family's dairy farm is and getting to the Land of My Birth around ten this morning. My son will pick me up and tonight he'll go through the temple for the first time. 

That is the whole reason for the trip and I'll tell more about that part later. 

Right now I'm going to turn around and watch one of my favorite things in the world:  sunrise over the desert. That's a bonus I wasn't expecting on this trip, so it's all good.