Traveling on the edge

Every spring, my sister Em and I like to get together. Her husband gets swallowed up in tax season for his job and my husband gets swallowed up by track season as a coach, so it's the best time of year for a sister gathering. And our kids LOVE their cousins, so everyone is happy. We all look forward to our annual springtime visit. Jay especially was in countdown agony, so excited to see his best bud-cousins at last. When it was time to plan the trip back in January, we couldn't find any worthwhile (aka affordable) plane tickets between Pasco, WA and St. Louis. We started thinking outside the box and came up with DENVER. The entire rest of our family has recently moved to Denver, and it is a more central location between WA and MO. I also happened to find affordable plane tickets to Denver, so we decided to converge on my parents' house there in March. It was our first all-5-sister gathering! (not counting the annual reunion) The most sisters we've had together for our spring visit in the past was three.

Enter: COVID-19. On Friday March 13th, the same day of our flight to Denver, our state governor closed all schools until April 24th in order to slow the spread of the virus. With all of the virus hype and restrictions, I was a little nervous to fly from Pasco with our connecting flight in Seattle. It was also a bummer to leave Jeff right when he had been locked out of both his teaching job and his coaching job. But the cousins were waiting in Denver, so onward we went, traveling on the edge of the pandemic-wave! What I did not factor in was the cursed date: Friday the 13th was cruel to us without even invoking the evil of the coronavirus. My journal entry from that day says it all:

Friday the 13th of March, 2020 version: What a day. I spent all morning dithering around getting the last few things ready for our trip to Denver. Around 2pm, Jeff texted me with the news that Governor Inslee had just cancelled all school in Washington for the next six weeks, through April 24th, due to the coronavirus. That means no track practice for six weeks either!

I picked up Amber early from preschool (2:20), then swung by and picked up Jay and Rose early from school (2:30). We met Jeff and he drove us straight to the Pasco airport. Check-in and security were a brief breeze, as usual in the tiny four-gate Tri-Cities Airport. That was the last thing that went smoothly for the rest of our journey. Our 5:15pm flight got delayed due to a storm in Seattle. Finally around 6pm, we boarded the plane and were told to wait 20 minutes for takeoff. After the 20 minutes passed, we were then told that the Seattle airport had actually grounded all incoming and outgoing flights due to that bad storm. We were sitting on a plane, but no flying was allowed. The pilot gave us the option to get off the plane again and wait the prescribed 45 minutes for the storm to pass, but that seemed like too much of a hassle with the kids so we stayed on the plane, waiting and wondering if we would leave in time to make our connecting flight in Seattle.

The plane was a small one, with just two seats on either side of the aisle. We had an entire row: Jay and me on one side, with Amber and Rose across the aisle.

There was a large service dog/support pet (a chocolate lab) lying on the floor right behind Rose and Amber's seat. Its hind leg and tail flopped under the seat into Rose's foot space. Every time the dog wagged its tail, it wapped back and forth between Rose's ankles and understandably kind of freaked her out. Finally I leaned across the aisle and got the lady to move the dog. At one point, the dog barked and it about sent me through the roof. I have self-diagnosed dog-bark anxiety/PTSD, born of my many negative mid-run canine confrontations. An airplane is the last place I want to be cooped up with a big ole barking DOG! Thankfully when the disembarking option for the 45 minute wait was announced, the dog lady stood up to get off the plane. Her dog's breath huffed on me and its long waggy tail kept smacking my leg as I sat in my aisle seat. I did NOT WANT a dog to touch me at all! The oblivious dog-owner just stood there smiling indulgently while my bubble was invaded by dogbreath, hair, and stress. UGH, dog people can be so inconsiderate. Thankfully the dog lady did not get back on the plane at all so we were off the hook after that initial discomfort.

Just when I was standing up to ask about developments, the pilot announced that we were cleared for takeoff in 20 minutes! So our flight left Pasco nearly 2 hours late and arrived in Seattle just before 8pm. The short 36 minute flight itself was horribly turbulent, with several big jerks, drops, and far too much side-to-side rocking. It was so stressful. My adrenaline spiked hard with the big drops. I was glad it was so dark in the plane because my hands were shaking and I was trying to make sure the kids were calm without tossing my cookies. They totally were way calmer than me. Motion sickness is my nemesis, but thankfully none of our party puked, though I did feel extremely green around the gills when we finally landed.

Thinking we only had 15 minutes to make our next flight, we POWER walked to our gate and found that the already-delayed Denver flight had been delayed more. During the 45 minutes that we were waiting at the gate, we had to pack up and caravan to the bathroom five gates down twice. We were in such a hurry the first time we went that Amber didn't actually use the toilet! While we waited at the gate, the girls climbed and hung and swung on a metal railing that ran along the busy hallway. It was crowded and Amber kept lying down and swimming on the dirty airport floor amidst high foot traffic, trying to slide down the slight slope in the floor. It was a quintessential Amber move, but stressful for her mother nonetheless. 

Eventually, around 9pm, our Denver flight was CANCELLED due to mechanical issues. We were all directed to the customer service desk--cue the impatient stampede! The line was enormous. But half of the people in line left when an airline worker directed them to a second service desk elsewhere. I stayed put with my crew of tired kids. Jay was weepy about not getting to see his cousins exactly when he had been expecting to. Amber was punchy (literally and figuratively--she had a loopy grin on her face and kept hitting her siblings to get a reaction out of their overtired moods). Rose was quite stoic and only scuffled with Amber a few times. 

After about 25 long minutes in line, we talked with an airline rep who booked us in an airline-comped hotel and on a 7am flight to Denver tomorrow morning. She also gave us four meal vouchers. By this point it was 9:30pm and the kids were alternately fighting, drooping, and whining. I had only eaten crackers, nuts, and raisins for dinner so I took my airline meal voucher and found some chicken chow mien, with the kids trailing snail-slow behind me. I carried my meal in the bag while we wandered around in search of the hotel courtesy vehicle pick-up point. In classic Seattle airport form, it was impressively difficult to find: down and escalator, across a  skyway bridge, down another escalator, then u-turn and over a crosswalk. Seriously, it felt like a miracle when we finally found the right "island" and caught our hotel shuttle.

We had to stand in line again to check in to the hotel and didn't make it into our room until 10:30pm. After brushing their teeth and peeing, the kids all collapsed into bed fully clothed and fell asleep immediately. I sat at the desk and ate my now-lukewarm chow mien by the light of my phone. We have to get up at 4am tomorrow. Five and a half hours of hotel time! 

I'm wondering if I'll get to sleep at all tonight. It takes me a while to unwind from intense situations like our evening has been, and the early wake-up hanging over me does not help. Whew. When we left home, we thought that the pandemic would be our biggest barrier to this trip. But instead, we had stormy weather and mechanical issues! From the time we left home to drive to the airport (3pm) to the time we arrived in our hotel room tonight (10:30pm) adds up to 7.5 hours to travel a distance we could drive in a mere 3 hours (as long as the mountain pass was clear, that is). Awesome. We are further from Denver 7.5 hours into our journey than we were when we started! 

Happy Friday the 13th!

Saturday, March 14, 2020: We made it! Waking up at 4am Pacific time this morning was TOUGH. I didn't get to sleep till after midnight, thanks to my brain needing time to unwind. Sadly I did not stay asleep. Rose kept coughing in the dry hotel room air, and Amber kicked me twice (I shared a bed with her). I must've woken up more than half a dozen times during the four hours I was in bed. I think I slept for less than 3 hours total. Three hours of broken sleep was not enough! I felt like such a zombie all day, with that tired fuzzy brain feeling always in the background.

But our flight was on time (7am), we arrived in Denver on time (10:40am-ish), and we only had minor turbulence during the flight. We even managed to cobble together a tasty breakfast at a cafe next to our gate, using our airline meal vouchers. I had some surprisingly good oatmeal.

Mom picked us up at the Denver airport, which is around 30-ish minutes from their house. When we pulled into the driveway, Steve was sitting in the grass by the driveway waiting for us. Jay said "let me out, let me out!" and he burst out of the car and hugged his cousin, with Rose and Amber following close behind. It was such a sweet happy reunion! The first thing I did after saying hi to a few family members was head to the bathroom and take a shower. I am not accustomed to sleeping in my clothes, and I felt quite grubby after my night in the hotel.

Anyways, it is so good to see my dear family!

{end journal entries}

Waiting indefinitely with Amber was exhausting. 

Nobody at the Seattle airport seemed too concerned about social distancing.

When we were finally in the elevator at the hotel, I rallied my weary trampled spirits and took a silly selfie memento.

After a few hours of sleep, we trudged back to the hotel lobby to await the first courtesy airport shuttle of the day. 

Navigating the confusing Seattle airport. They were always on the edge of too far away from me for comfort. Figures, the only people practicing social distancing at this point seemed to be my own children, wandering far from me!

At last, settled into the last row of our last plane. Actually sitting on planes is totally the easy part about traveling with these three kids. Screens on! No problem. 

Within five minutes of our arrival at my parents' house, the cousins had picked up the Dungeons and Dragons game that they have been playing via FaceTime for weeks. 

Saturday night pizza with 11/12 of the cousins-- #12 is baby Della who does not have teeth yet.