Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Around the World and Back Again

Ok, so finally the blog about the trip to VA and back (I’ll save the reunion blog for later). I must admit – it will be a pretty boring entry and that is a very good thing. Bottom line is that Cora wasn’t too bad on the trip and we had NO meltdowns – so at least we weren’t “those people” on the flight.

We knew it was going to be a long day of travel. Basically we had to be at the airport by 9:30 for our 10:30 flight. We then had a two hour flight (ish) to Detroit, followed by a 45 minute lay-over and another 2 hour flight into Roanoake. After getting to Roanoake we would have to get our luggage and then pick up our rental car and then drive two hours to get to Nellysford. Oy vey. Lets just say I did not have very high hopes and imagined an very angry screaming, fed up baby on the drive if not before.

Well I am happy to report that both on the way there and on the way back Coco slept on the 2 hour drive, and the first flight. She was awake both times on the final flight but was still a good girl – we just had to keep her entertained. In fact on the flight back into Des Moines it was another mother’s little one who threw the 40 minute screaming fit. I felt terrible for her (she was traveling alone with her little one) but so relieved that it wasn’t us!

We had a few grump-ifying experiences. One, none of the airline gate attendants would allow us to use Cora’s carseat even when there was an empty seat (or on some flights, many seats) available. Sooo poor Ryan had to lug the carseat carrier around for two days for no good reason. Two, we had a rude family in the row in front of us on the flight back into Des Moines (allowed the kids to listen to DVD’s without headsets thus blaring the movie Garfield to the whole cabin, refused to spend anytime interacting with their own kids – too busy reading books, and once when Coco dropped her paci and it rolled up the aisle in between the husband and wife, they just looked at the paci and turned away causing Ryan to unbelt himself and try to grope up the aisle for it.) Nothing horrible – just bad manners (which are, unfortunately, so prevalent these days).

So all in all a good trip and a huge relief. I don’t think we’ll be making our trip to Paris anytime soon unless we somehow spring for First Class, but at least I wouldn’t be daunted in the slightest to make a short trip to Chicago or Denver with the munchkin now!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

I'm very impressed. I have a hard time travelling with myself, I can't imagine doing it with a lil' one.

Anonymous said...

For better or for worse, children will always be children. When you become a parent, you become much more understanding. Back when I was flying somewhere most weeks, I used to feel sorry for the scared/wet/hungry little ones, and for the poor parent who was trying to keep up with two or three....