Wednesday, July 11, 2007

This was our travel day. Up at 3:30 a.m. to get ready and to get to the Oakland airport in time for an 8:30 a.m. flight.

The flight to Phoenix was relatively quick. Our boys, ages 3 and 5, were both so excited with the airplane itself that we didn't need to break out any of our secret weapons on this flight.

We had about an hour in the Phoenix airport before our flight to Indianapolis. That was more boring for the boys so we did get out the Video Now for our youngest and the V-Smile portable video game player for our oldest.

Those helped them to pass the time on the flight to Indiana as well. Our three-year-old also colored in one of his Sesame Street coloring books. He also found the sticker page and proceeded to put every single sticker on a picture of Bert.

Overall, they were well-behaved and things went more smoothly than I expected. We even got compliments on how good their behavior was.

I think with all the safety regulations they have to tell you on flights these days, including how you cannot line up for the lavatory in the front of the plane, they should instruct passengers on how to use the lavatories, or, at least, the doors and locks. I had to use the bathroom. The rear lavatory was occupied and the front one was clear; they have lights that let you know whether the lavatory is vacant or occupied. Anyway, I made my way to the front lavatory and it was not vacant. An elderly woman was in there. She had closed the door but had not locked it, so the light showed it as vacant. I waited a moment, and then a flight steward came up and I tried to tell her why I was in the forward galley. She gave me a strange look, so I went back to my seat before she started to say something to me.

I waited back at my seat and kept checking the rear lavatory. Finally, it was clear, so I headed back. And some guy was in it. He had locked the door that it read as occupied on the outside of the door, but hadn't pulled the door all the way closed, so it still showed as vacant on the light above the aisle.

What are the odds that this would happen, that two different people on the same flight within minutes of each other would make two different mistakes that had the same result? I don't know either, but it happened. You can't make this stuff up.

Of course, with the prevailing winds blowing west to east, our flight got in half an hour before scheduled. That was great. But the flight steward joked over the intercom that we should all turn our cell phones on and call someone to share the good news, because she knew we did that with the bad news. I'm not sure they should get credit for something that happens naturally, but it was still nice getting in to Indianapolis early.

Addendum: we went to the rental place where we had a reservation, but they didn't have the size car that we reserved. This seems to be a common practice nowadays, though not a good one. What's the point of making a reservation, but not actually having a car reserved for you? Of course, they offer you a bigger car, but it costs more. I think it's all a scam.

I followed my uncle's directions to his house an did pretty well until we got really close to his house, when I turned left too soon. I found the street he lived on and turned right, but we had to drive a lot further than expected on a narrow road past cornfield after cornfield. And it had gotten dark. At one point, my oldest son said it was too dark and we should turn around. We're used to urban living where there are so many streetlamps that even at night it doesn't really get that dark. But out here in the middle of nowhere, it was dark and he got a little scared. But soon enough we were there and everything was okay again.