The Long and Winding Road

Yesterday was quite the journey. It started at 4:45 AM as I packed up the last of my TUFW dorm room, put the mattresses back on the beds, tucked my extra suitcases in an empty office in Admissions and awaited the arrival of Chantler Thompson, chauffeur to the stars, at 5:30. He arrived promptly and we took off through the cornfields and small towns of north central Indiana, headed for the airport in South Bend . . . where I was scheduled for a 2:14 PM flight to Chicago. Yes, you read that right.

Our objective was to catch an earlier flight to Chicago, then hope to catch another flight ahead of schedule and finally, beat the odds to catch a third flight at an earlier time and thus get to Medford before 10:30 at night.

To make a long story short, I could not make the first South Bend flight but did make the next one. In Chicago, it took me four tries but I got onto the last flight that would have done me any good, whereupon we sat at the gate for forty minutes while an unruly passenger was removed and a late-arriving passenger in a wheelchair was accomodated. We landed in San Francisco at 5:30, at the gate next to the one for the 6:00 flight to Medford, again the last one that would do me any good. I was able to get on and 90 minutes later, walked into the Medford airport just as the kids themselves arrived. After the obligatory stop at Old Navy (as we have not yet wrapped our minds around the fact that there are actually stores and malls in Fort Wayne), I pulled into my old driveway at about 10:30, a mere twenty hours after starting my trek.

It was great to see Jeannette and the kids . . . and, surprisingly, MelodyJoy didn't even punish me for abandoning her for a month. It was wonderful to get her hugs again.