back from the dead, and delaware

Delaware was not death at all — Delaware was actually a good trip. Not that I didn’t expect being there to be good — I knew that would be fun, since it always is. I wasn’t so sure about the getting there part, which involved flying. With my 83 year old father who had never flown until last October, when he got to go to DC with a Rotary group (the exact same day I left for England, oddly, and even odder we were both in DC at the same time, me changing planes and him getting to see the WW2 memorial) other than a ride in a crop duster plane when he was a kid. The Rotary Club Veterans Trip involved flying straight from Asheville to DC and did not involve plane changes and long treks to far-flung gates in Charlotte and then in Philadelphia, which unfortunately we had to experience in order to fly to Delaware. No direct flights from Asheville to Philadelphia, sadly. So I was a little apprehensive about that. He’s pretty mobile, but gets tired fast. And isn’t exactly speedy. So I knew we would not be making good time between our gates. And I’d tried to get flights without a whole lot of time between arrivals and departures so we’d get up there as soon as possible. Which meant, of course, second-guessing myself as to the wisdom of only having like an hour to depart from one flight and get to the next. If I were alone that would be more than enough time, providing there were no delays. But since I’m nothing if not a worrier about what COULD happen (especially once I’ve ensured that I have cut off any alternative routes) I commenced to worrying. What if we didn’t have enough time and missed the connection? What if Daddy keeled over en-route?? What if I was wrong about 6 AM being PLENTY early enough to get to the Asheville Regional Airport for a 7:20 flight, especially since my brother was taking us and I’d already printed our boarding passes? What if he didn’t make it through security??? What if it took us so much time to go through security that all the delayed business travelers backed up behind us took matters into their own hands and found an App to destroy people who delay you while going through security?????

So I did a lot of weighing a four-hour trip with plane changes, security, and treks through massive international airports against a 10 hour drive with enormous potential of turning into 12 or 14 hour drives after factoring in DC/Baltimore traffic delays, and me doing all the driving. Which is going to be MORE stressful?!

Well, driving hands down, as it turned out. Flying was fine. The Asheville airport is teeny and although Daddy did not rush through security — and in fact had to have The Pat Down since he has a defibrillator and can’t go through the scanner thing — it was not crowded at that hour. We had plenty of time — enough for me to go buy a garganto cup of coffee – and the plane took off right on schedule. Charlotte is a big airport and we had to travel a bazillion gates to get to our Philly flight, but turns out those carts they have zipping around everywhere are for anybody with mobility issues. I was afraid it was a more formal process but basically you say you need a ride and they say hop in. Or they radio one to come get you. We also took the moving sidewalks in Charlotte, which were handy. Although very very slow. And we had plenty of time between changes. The worst part was I had the middle seat on both flights between Charlotte and Philly — coming and going — so had about six inches of space. Daddy is pretty big, and on the trip up the guy with the window seat was even bigger than him. So that was kind of torturous — I don’t like being crammed up against people I know, and really really don’t like being crammed up against people I don’t know — but at least it was a fairly short flight. An hour and 15 or so minutes. Not like flying to London. And the Asheville-Charlotte legs were two-seat rows.  Daddy’s biggest complaint was not being able to see out very well on most of the legs. Somehow every seat we got was over a wing. I will have to avoid that next time. Oh, and the return flight from Charlotte to Asheville was a propeller plane, which I’d never been on. It looked a little scary as we hiked out on the tarmac to it, but it was fine. No bumpier than the little jet we’d been on the first leg. 

Cousin J picked us up at the Philly airport, and Monday morning Cousin MJ very conveniently was flying to Austin for work and had a flight a half hour earlier than ours, so she took us to the airport. That certainly worked out well. Daddy has already decided that we will be flying on future trips. We’ll probably go again this summer. 

The visit itself was great – got to see a lot of The Cousins, and although it was the usual very fast trip – two nights — flying instead of driving meant we had a lot more quality time. Sadly my aunt — Daddy’s sister and Cousin E’s mom — is not doing very well, and didn’t feel up to coming to Cousin J’s house for dinner either night, when the rest of the gang was there. Daddy got to spend a lot of time with her since we left him at her apartment both days, but I hated she’s feeling so bad. 

We got back Monday — early flight, got to Asheville at 2 and I was home by 5. Went to work Tuesday…. started feeling not so good Tuesday night…. woke up with a high fever and serious body aches Wednesday. My teeth even hurt. Did not go to work the rest of the week. I’m sure it was the flu, although I had a flu shot — high fever (101), severe aches, severe exhaustion. NO fun. Finally started feeling like I’d probably live after all by Friday evening. Still tired, but well enough to venture back out into the world tomorrow. And I need to go to bed now, so I’ll leave you with some Delaware Pictures:

And Pre-Delaware. It was very pretty flying over the mountains, despite how tired I am of looking at snow. Which was all over Delaware too.

But we went to Longwood Gardens on Saturday, and saw FLOWERS!!!!!!

That’s mostly what I have pictures of. Lots and lots of flowers. 

Along with cute kids –

<img alt="" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5050/5382681139_533dddfef8.jpg&#8221; />

Cute dogs –

And Daddy and Aunt Merle –