It always feels like a crap shoot when you travel. You just don’t know what you are going to get. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing. The first of 2 flights to Florida leaves on time and you reach your connecting flight with plenty of time to spare. That flight also leaves on time and you get to Florida without a single incident. You have a great vacation on the beach with your sister and her kids. They left on Wednesday and we were sad to see them go be we push though the sadness and continue the fun until Saturday. Then it’s time to fly back home with no worries. You even add your daughter to the flight because driving down to Florida with her 2 brothers took a lot out of her. You thought this will be good, she will get home quicker and be able to get a good night sleep in her own bed. Of course you don’t think about the small car you rented and how squishy it will be to add a 5th person. No worries it’s just a 1 hour drive. We made it to the airport without a hitch. Chris, Anna and Toby go through TSA pre check because we planned ahead and got that for them. On the other hand we did not get that for Josie. I went with Josie though regular security. Lucky for us, it was a breeze and we had the others take all our carry ons through TSA precheck, we only had to take off our shoes. Boarding went well and we all got cozy in our economy plus seats, perks of having a husband who travels all the time. And then we wait and wait and wait. Storms in our flight path has completely messed up our flight plans to land in Dulles airport and get on our connecting flight to Cleveland. What to do. Chris gets on the phone and tries to juggle our connecting flight. It was a no go. We had a choice to deplane and stay in Jacksonville or go to Dulles and stay over night in DC. We choose to stay on the flight and head to DC. After making that decision we realize that most of our stuff is on Cory’s truck heading toward Stow, Ohio. So we sit and make a shopping list like underwear, toothpaste, socks and clean shirts. Meanwhile, Josie is rapidly deteriorating. Chris got off the plane to find some Tylenol and comes back with aspirin. That’s not going to work for Josie. We finally get off the ground and land in DC around 7pm. We had one checked in bag of left over things we had because Alex and Cory left earlier than us. Josie is fading even further and we realize the irony of taking Josie with us. Chris rented a car back in Jacksonville so we shuttled to the car and drove to the hotel. We have now depleted all our Hilton points but we have Josie laying down on a bed and trying to figure out a dinner at 8pm at night. Chris and Anna head out to find a Kohl’s to complete our shopping list and Meds for our rapidly deteriorating Josie. Around 9pm we finally have some sketchy clothes to wear and food in our bellies. After a semi good night sleep we decide to go ahead with our plan to do a little site seeing, with temperatures expected to reach 90 degrees, because that is the best thing to do with a Josie who is not feel all that great. We head to downtown, park and walk ever so slowly, trying desperately to stay in the shade, and making frequent rest stops. We go to the Washington monument and the Lincoln memorial. We decide that that is more than enough for Josie and head back to the car. We stopped to buy some ice cream from a sketchy looking ice cream truck with a man squished in said truck with very little room to move let alone room to scoop out ice cream. We try desperately to eat the ice cream before it melts all over our hands and of course fail miserably. Almost to the car, we decided we needed something to commemorate our short stint in DC. We stop at a truck on the side of the road and purchase some t-shirts, hoodies, hats and a statue of something that Toby liked. Handing over my credit card hoping not to find some strange purchases in the future. Meanwhile, Chris and Josie head back to the car for some a/c and more meds for Josie. The drive back to Dulles airport was uneventful. We drop off the car, shuttle to the the airport and decide that the smartest thing we could do was get Josie a wheelchair, because we tortured her enough in DC. It was one of our smarter decisions since it felt like we had the farthest gate from the check in. We walked and walked and walked and the poor airport worker had to push and push Josie all through Dulles airport, good thing Josie is a tiny thing, until we finally got to gate C3. We gave him a hefty tip and we were thankful for his help. Then we sat and sat and sat. We were there very early because we had nothing else to do. I would like to tell you the rest of the story but we are now just in our seats waiting to take off. Fingers crossed, we were just informed that there are some storms between here and Cleveland. Of course there are…
End Note: They all made it home safely that night with no further mishaps. Have a great week everyone! Thanks to Catherine for being my guest blogger this week.
