Honeymoon Anticipation

I love to travel. I love to go to new places, I love seeing new cities and exploring all they have to see. I pretty much love all that is involved in traveling EXCEPT when my flights are delayed or cancelled (or if we’re stranded). Other than that, bring on the hustle-and-bustle of airports.

Nothing compares to the anticipation and excitement I get every time I board a plane (and I’ve been flying since I was 3 months old). When I think of future travel, I get the same sense of excitement and definitely a certain level of anxiousness. With our honeymoon less than 2 months away (squeal!!), I have been anxiously thinking about all our travel plans- (early-morning) flights, 2 different airlines, hotels, driving across an island, going to another country, weather, etc.

{my favorite tassels with my favorite, gifted, luggage tag- “you won’t look good in my clothes”}

As much as I love to travel,  I’m not the world’s best traveler.  If I were graded on my traveling skills, I would probably get a flat C. I would get an A+ in packing. I can pack all my belongings in a carry-on and a purse to 99% of the places I go. Now, here’s where the A+ gets brought down to a C… I would get an F when it comes to actually getting on my flight and making it to my destination at the scheduled time, for reasons that are in my control, not the airlines.

Here are some examples:

1. One time I missed my flight. Not a big deal, you’re thinking. Everyone’s missed a flight. Well, have you ever missed a flight when you were sitting in the correct gate at the correct time? You read that right- I was sitting in the correct gate and I missed my flight. That, my friends, takes some serious talent. They were even calling my name over the loud speaker. Yup, I was one of the people that was being paged (side note, I cringe a little every time I hear someone being paged over the loud speaker at an airport- I pray that they’re not sitting in the correct gate and just not paying attention). Apparently the book I was reading was that good that I didn’t hear anything else nor was I paying attention to the time. Don’t ask. I’m embarrassed. Eventually I figured we should be boarding by now, so I timidly approached the gate agent- they can be so mean, so I hate going up there for anything. “Lucky” for me there were 2 gate agents. When I asked about the flight and they asked for my name, they said with a confused look on their faces “uh, we paged you a few times, that flight took off about 10 minutes ago.” Oh, uhhhhhh. I happened to be going to a small town in Oklahoma, so there were only TWO flights a day to make the connection flight. Luckily I only missed the first one, so they got me on the next one- 4 hours later.

2. That same day, on a different flight, I actually boarded the wrong flight (going from Colorado to Oklahoma). Yes- same day. I stowed my carry-on and waited patiently for the flight to take off. I happened to be in someone’s seat and when the correct seat owner came to sit down she said (rather rudely, I might add) “you’re in my seat.”  To which I said “here’s my ticket with this seat number.” We were both confused and then someone else chimed in with where the flight was going. It was going to Kansas. I promptly picked up my carry-on bag and got off the flight. The best part….it was one of those small planes that you actually had to walk out on the tarmac to, so everyone in the terminal could see me get on…. then everyone could see me get off. Have you ever walked OFF a flight people are getting ON because you don’t know what you’re doing? If that was the only bad part of this part of the day, that would have been fine. Unfortunately I was wearing some obnoxious peachy/orange pants (major fashion faux-pas). So everyone in the terminal saw “the girl with the tacky orange pants” get on, then saw “the girl with the tacky orange pants” get off and come back in the terminal. By this point, I had already talked to this gate agent a few times because she was in charge of re-booking my second flight since I had missed my connecting flight. She knew my name. As soon as I got through that door after almost being blown away by the torrential wind gusts, she said “Barbara, are you tryin’ to go to Kansas?!” while e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. is staring at me.  I felt like screaming at her “Why did you let me on the plane?!?! You took my ticket and let me board!” I could not get to my destination soon enough and that day could not end soon enough.

3. There was another time when I booked a vacation- San Diego to Sacramento, Sacramento to Colorado and Colorado to San Diego. When I went to check-in for my Sacramento to Colorado flight, I couldn’t. After many frustrating minutes, I realized I booked the Sacramento to Colorado and Colorado to San Diego flights all on the same day, but the flight times were so off that there was no possible way I could do the trip I booked. Geez-freakin’-Louise.

4. And then there was the time…. just kidding! I’ll spare you the rest of my traveling woe’s. Believe me there are plenty more.

Anyways, as you can probably assume, I like to use the buddy system when I travel. I think all of the above examples do a good job of explaining why I need the buddy system. With our honeymoon coming up, I’m definitely anxious about all the traveling and different reservations, but at least I’ll have my buddy with me to get us from place to place and to help us have the most amazing, relaxing, tropical, adventurous honeymoon ever!