Travel Gods - Good or Bad?

They toy with you...the travel gods that is. We just returned from a trip to visit my family (post Christmas you could say). We travelled in the world of a Southwest Airlines non-revenue passenger (the loyal employee that I am). The flights were wide open...thanks to planning our travels mid-week and in mid-January...who flies either. Thursday morning...flights still wide open...geez can this really be? The first time we non-rev with Nora and we are going to be able to get her a seat of her very own. Score...get to take the car seat with us. All the way to Baltimore (BWI) we have a row for just the three of us. Nora does great. We are arriving in BWI almost 20 minutes early. This is great...plenty of time for us to grab something to eat, feed Nora and let her crawl (yes crawl...on all fours like a "normal" child). Hmm...18 minutes early seems to be taking a long time. Ah...the friendly voice of our pilot..."ladies and gentlemen, we have been circling over BWI due to bad weather, we now have to divert to Islip (Long Island) NY to refuel before we are allowed to land, we apolog..." What was that...George did he just say we are going to NY? Surely I just heard that wrong. Nope...Nora made her first trip to NYC at a ripe young age of 9 1/2 months. I called mom & dad to let them know that we made it to NY early. They voices got all excited, "you're already in Albany?" Nope...Long Island...sorry to get your hopes up. We're delayed and I don't know until when. Luckily, we were allowed off the plane (this is a good 6 hours into our trip...the natives are getting restless)...we stretched, we crawled, we dined on Cheetos. We refueled and were off to the great land of Maryland...only to have missed our connection. So finally at 7:45pm (we left Big D at 8am) we are off to Albany...finally arriving in at our final destination at about 2am (EST of course). Nora spent 18+ hours of traveling and was still smiling at the end of it. Did they give ME the right child at the hospital?!?!?!
Great time at home with the family. We took family pictures, watched basketball games, ate lots of lasagna, played in the snow, drank a couple beers, and came home.

Home. Ah sweet home. This continues our saga with the travel gods. Again, I really do think they enjoy toying with people. Again, the flights are wide open. Again we get to have Nora's car seat. Again Nora is great! And even after leaving 30 minutes late out of BWI, we still land uneventfully in Dallas only 10 minutes behind schedule. Uneventful. "Mom, Dad, we've landed. We are on our way home. Nora did great!" Grabbed the bags, jumped the shuttle and there she is...my sweet car. Vroom vroom we are off...with a flat tire! Argh. George gets the tire changed. Not bad, 9pm. I can handle this. And we're off...George...put the peddle to the metal and get this baby home. Why you stopping? Do you need me to show you how to drive? Flat...what's flat? We don't have anything else that can be flat. The "donut" is flat? Oh crap. Now we have a call out for a tow truck to take us to the dealership. What are we going to do once at the dealership is a mystery to me, but that is where they told us to go. What Mr. Tow truck driver...you know of a 24 hour tire place. You can get us there so we can be all fixed in an hour. Great let's do it...we have plastic. With Nora in her car seat sound asleep on my lap in the front of a tow truck driving down "75" at 10pm, we head off the the "ghetto" to get a tire. Home by 11pm. Nora still sound asleep (did I mention how great she did?).

Moral of the story. We had a great trip, Nora is a natural born traveller, but the travel gods will have their fun one way or another! And if you are ever in Dallas and need a cheap tire in the middle of the night, head downtown to Carroll Ave (at 45 & 30).