The Mr’s parents, Coupon Queen and Grand Pooba, have been retired for a while now.
Like many retired couples, they like to go on vacation.
They especially enjoy taking such trips with the rest of the family.
Hence, it was no surprise when, some time ago, they hatched plans for a new adventure.
The main challenge was scheduling the adventure.
They had to find a time that suited the kids’ various school schedules. Chicky is taking two online college courses this summer, and she has weekly assignments, tests, and quizzes.
They also took into account my EPI schedule.
Originally, they wanted to go adventuring during the first week of June; however, I would have had to miss my last Saturday class, and that would have been bad.
As such, they waited a month until I had finished.
On June 30th, the entire family, including Super Sis, Super D, Music Man, and Dr. J (aka, my sister, the Mr’s brother [who are married to each other…yes, sisters married brothers], and their children…my nephews) drove to Podunk, USA (where I live) to catch a flight out the next day.
Guy Friend, Dancing Girl, and Dancing Girl’s dad drove us to the airport.
Now, consider something.
There were ten people in our group.
That’s a lot of suitcases!!
We flew out using Southwest, which has a weight limit of 50 pounds on suitcases. Travelers get charged extra fees for bags that go over the weight limit. My suitcase was the heaviest at 43 pounds.
Must have been all of the knitting projects I was taking. 😉
Southwest has a strange seating policy.
What you have to do is 24 hours before your flight takes off, you go online and get your seating number. When loading planes with passengers, Southwest calls for group A first. People get numbered 1-60. Then, they move to group B, and then to group C.
Our numbering started in the high A’s and went into the low B’s.
When you get on board, you pick your seat…first come first serve.
Can you imagine trying to get ten seats together?
It actually wasn’t too difficult, but I watched as couples and families in later groups got separated.
This was the only thing I didn’t like about Southwest.
The crew was amazing…very customer service oriented. The flight attendants made the trips fun. And let me tell you…this was important because we had to catch two connecting flights…one in Nashville, and the second one in Chicago.
The weather was perfect for flying…
Southwest allows passengers to take one carry-on bag and one personal bag. Naturally, my carry-on was my knitting bag. I had stuffed it with knitting projects and books.
Well, it didn’t take long for me to pull out my newest project…
Our flight to Nashville was short…just over an hour. We really only had time to walk to the gate of our connecting flight and jump on. The trip to Chicago was another short one, although the last ten minutes were very bumpy because of the wind. We ate lunch at the airport in Chicago and then took off for our final destination.
I knit…
The weather continued to cooperate nicely…
Super Sis and I played cards…
We call the game “500,” but it’s really Rummy. We played it often when we were growing up, so we can be very competitive.
As you can tell from the score sheet above, I beat her soundly.
After the game, I visited the restroom. When I got back and pulled out my camera for something, I discovered that Super Sis had taken the following picture…
Apparently, she was not pleased with the score. 😀
As we flew on and on, the scenery changed…
Florida does not have mountains, people.
And then we saw this…
It looked like a mountain was just floating in the sky…it was enormous!!
The pilot provided us with the smoothest landing I’ve ever experienced on a flight, and we discovered that the temperature was quite noticeably cooler from that in Florida.
We were almost ready for the next part of our adventure.
However, first we had to catch a shuttle from the airport to our hotel.
That was an interesting experience.
The first shuttle…the one we had called for…picked up another group.
This did not sit well with the Mr’s parents.
Coupon Queen chased down the shuttle’s driver and gave him strict instructions to return straightaway to the airport and to only pick us up.
It gave us all a chuckle.
He returned, as promised, and we made it to our home away from home, where I pulled out a new pair of pajamas, saved just for the trip…
I had gotten the pants on sale at Old Navy and had purchased them with money that was left over on a gift card that Super Sis had given me for Christmas.
Thus ended the first day of our adventure. We turned in early because we had a busy day ahead of us.
Filed under: Vacation | Tagged: Southwest, travel, Vacation | 2 Comments »
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