It’s the middle of our second night out to sea. Two o’clock in the morning, home time, and God only knows what time that makes it here. I’ve been up most of the night, not because I’ve been partying it up, but because my twinies won’t let me sleep. So after a while, I noticed my thoughts going into a replay of the last few days, and I thought I might take advantage of the moment to put them to digital “paper”.
Day 1- Babies First Flights
We were supposed to leave at midnight. We left at two. Car packed with three checked bags, one stroller, three carry-ons, and all of us. Somewhere I found out that we didn’t have enough shorts for the Bug, so on top of being two hours behind schedule, we needed a stop at the 24 hour WalMart.
Somehow we still managed to pull in to Sea-Tac in plenty of time, and parked at the long term parking. The nice lady driving the shuttle even came out from the shuttle parking and moved the van to where we could load our bags directly from the car with no problems.
There was a line to check in to the airline… Southwest, fly the open skylight. But we still managed to get through that quickly and moved on to the dreaded security. I’ve heard horror stories about full body scanners, and strip searches… I am aware that liquids are limited as to what is allowed through, but the twins require soy milk, so I was having to try to get that through. The doctor kindly wrote notes to vouch for their need for the soy… that I forgot in the car. Yeah, security was a breeze. They made us x-ray everything, of course. They were thorough about that. We declared the baby products, and they laugh and told us not to worry. It went through the x-ray, and then a quick liquid scan that didn’t even require opening the package. We walked through the metal detector with no shoes, and we were on our merry way. Huh. Who woulda thought?
So there we were, hauling the Bug and the Princess in their car seats, through the entire airport to our gate… which was crowded. The five of us wound up sitting around a kids table, just to have a place to sit. Another gentleman sat with us, a guy with two boys one girl of his own back at home, and was in the Coast Guard. He had fun playing with the kids and keeping them entertained for a while. Boarding went smooth, we were like the 70’th-75th people on board, so we took over two rows to ourselves, seating the babies in the car seats by the windows. Each flight worked out pretty much the same on that whole process. Each flight was also completely packed.
Time for takeoff, and I’m waiting for screaming babies. Nope, they were thrilled. The both of them felt the difference when we started heading down the runway, and were so excited to see us take off and fly. Big smiles and ooh’s and ah’s from both of them. The sun was rising at the time, so they had a lovely color to their faces. I took pictures…. Too bad I lost my damned iPod that the pictures are on…
A few hours later we landed in Vegas, for about an hour and ½ layover, no biggie, and off we were, to Nashville. Okay, we didn’t even get off the plane there, but hey, we were there. Some passengers got off, some came on, and we took off again, this time for Charleston, South Carolina.
From Vegas to Charleston I was seated between the Princess and a very nice lady who is in the Army and flying home from training in San Diego. She loved the Princess, and we had a great time. During our stop in Nashville, the plane was over booked by one seat. The last person was an injured Army soldier, on his crutches, in his uniform. Now I know as well as the next guy that he very likely could have been hurt in an off time incident, playing basket ball or what not, but still, it struck heartstrings through the plane. He had no seat, and they were asking for volunteers to give up a seat. Southwest offered the volunteer a $500 voucher transferrable and good for a year, plus his guaranteed seat on a plane the next day, and free hotel and rental car for the evening. The volunteer was applauded on his way off, and the soldier was applauded and given a standing ovation on his way on. Kinda cool, really.
Our landing in Charleston was nothing short of terrifying. I guess it was gusty out, though I didn’t feel it later as we were standing outside, nor did the windsocks show much sign of it. Anyhow, so we landed ridiculously hard, and then the pilot even struggled to keep us on the runway, because we kept veering off to the left until we finally slowed to a manageable speed. Once he had control, he got on the intercom and simply said, “ouch!”. Okay, we all laughed and forgave him, but I can tell you that I believe a few armrests have permanent finger marks where we were all gripping so tightly.
Now Charleston was interesting from the start. Walking off the airplane and into the airport, I felt like I was in one of those 60’s or 70’s shows where there’s a lawyer or a private eye following a lead on some crazy case they are working on… Kept looking for Columbo to pop his head around the corner oin a hurry and on the case. Something about the décor just reminded me of that. Stepped outside to the taxi stand, and we hired a shuttle to get us to the hotel. John, the nice man who drove the van, took very good care of us. We made sure to get his card. He was full of helpful hints and information.
The hotel was under construction, and our room still smelled of new carpet and paint, but it wasn’t too awful. People were friendly at least. We were dead tired and in need of food, and the gal, Vicky, running the front desk directed us to Bucks pizza. Hello delivery! And wow, seriously, fantastic pizza!
A shower after dinner, and it was lights out, because we were going to need our energy for the craziness that would be the Schmelzer family reunion cruise.
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