And the curse shall be upon thy children, and thy children's children... (Or, Why I will never again fly standby)

When I was growing up, there was a perpetual joke that my family had been cursed by the vacation gods. From major car failure to Hurricane Opal, something always seemed to go wrong when we tried to leave the state.

I thought that, having gotten married and changing my last name, I would evade such fate.

No such luck.

I had decided to come up and see Emma Mei, my new niece from China. Amy, my sister-in-law, has a cousin who works for Delta and graciously allowed me to fly on her buddy pass (standby). Here was how my traveling went:

My plan was to leave Sunday at 4:45, hop on my connecting flight in Atlanta, and be in Grand Rapids by 9pm. That idea was WAY too good to be true. Well, the 4:45 flight- and the one before it- to ATL were canceled, which way overbooked the 6:20 flight. I finally left for ATL at about 8:30, getting there an hour later. Rocky & Carolyn were kind enough to come pick me up and let me crash with them for the night! Of course, I stayed up talking to Carolyn until 1:30, allowing me to get a whopping four hours of sleep before getting up to head to the airport early Monday morning. Long story short, I got there at 7am and finally flew out at 8:30, after trying to get on FIVE flights. (A couple GR flights I attempted to get on were overbooked and had standby lists of around twenty-five people. Yes. A 50-passenger plane had 79 people vying for the seats.) I then tried Lansing, Flint, and ended up going to Chicago. Jon's brother Ben came to get me and took me to his dad's house in St. Joe, and Amy came and got me Tuesday morning. So, my Sunday evening arrival turned into a Tuesday afternoon one. (of course, it prompted me to extend my stay, so itsallgood). I will say, I was pretty impressed with myself. I didn't cry at all on Sunday, and on Monday, other than a few brief tears, I didn't start to lose it until I had not made it onto 4 flights and I had been there for 10 hours. And, then, I DID start to lose it. Have you ever seen The Terminal? I suddenly understood.

That said, I'm having a great time! Emma is absolutely adorable! She is a smart girl who picks up on a lot. Whatever you say is liable to come out of her mouth... makes you think twice! :-) The shower went really well last night, and Jon's two sisters (one from Virginia) were able to be there as well. I'm going tonight to hang out with my family, though my parents weren't able to make it up.

Hopefully I'll be ably to fly under the radar (no pun intended) of the vacation gods on the way home...