I was getting hungry, so I decided to hop in the car and go grab some Chick-Fil-A (it’s my comfort food). I searched my Tom Tom for a point of interest and easily put in the destination. 30 seconds away from “Chick-Fil-A”, we go through a tunnel, and 30 seconds later, right in the middle, we’re supposedly there. So no Chick-Fil-A. This was not going to fly. I was hungry and starting to get pissed.

I wasn’t going to give up that easily. If that Chick-Fil-A was a bust, there has to be another one somewhere. Indeed there was one in the GPS, so I turn around and follow the new directions. Apparently the signal in Asheville isn’t the best, so my GPS Is going wild and keeps changing directions on me. One minute I’m supposed to be going straight, the next minute I’m passing the turn I should have taken from the other lane! Not to mention the distinct lack of blinkerage and the city-wide speed limit of 35.

Eventually I find the Chick-Fil-A and I’m amazed to see that it’s a drive-through ONLY! This is something I’ve never seen before. It’s not the rinky-dink-drive-through with two windows, but there’s an offshoot from the building with it’s own separate drive-through. In looking at this situation, I was wondering how they got the food from the kitchen in the other building over to the customers at the second drive-through, so I asked the gentleman at the window. It turns out that there’s a train that carries the food through the roof! I just sat there and looked at him with my mouth hanging open until they quickly handed me my food. Seriously! A train!

Not wanting to eat in the car, I chose to take my food to the ample outdoor seating area. It was only then that I saw there was a walk-up service, too! This was the coolest Chick-Fil-A ever.

So, Chick-Fil-A, I salute you.

Wisdom teeth are third molars that usually appear between the ages of 17 and 24 (although they may appear when older, younger, or may not appear at all). They are commonly removed when they affect other teeth (become impacted), colloquially known as “coming in sideways.”

Wisdom teeth are often described as an example of a “vestigial” trait. Some argue that recent changes to softer diets which cause less wear on the teeth may be causing the third molars to be less useful, and, in fact, problematic in many humans. Alternately, it is possible that wisdom teeth were useful when it was common for humans to lose several teeth to decay by the age when they appear. They are generally thought to be called wisdom teeth because they appear so late, at an age where people are supposedly wiser than as a child when the other teeth erupt. Wide mind, not wise teeth.

Unfortunately, I have to have mine removed during my Spring Break. Yep. Another holiday sacrificed to surgery. Make sure to keep me in mind as I go under the knife 03/16/10 at 11:00am!

After the obligatory ooh’s and aah’s over the house, we take a quick walking tour around her nearly 2 acres of land. Set beautifully on the mountain with a large grassy area and a quaint garden, the house was a welcome change from life on the island. During the tour, Marlynn was quick to show off what she had learned the previous day. Buster, the neigbor to the left, loves anything that’s grass and volunteers to cut the yard (and the flowers, because they’re not grass) at least once a month. In the garden grows blueberries, raspberries, carrots, corn, green beans, wax beans, basil, broccoli, beets, and, of course, bunnies — but those come and go. We were able to pick blueberries and raspberries, though both were sparse on the vine. Ann, in her infinite wisdom, had picked the carrots a day earlier, but decided it was a good idea to stuff them back in the dirt, thinking they would continue to grow. They didn’t.

After the tour of the exterior, we were treated to the same hospitality on the inside, being escorted room by room from the basement to the upper apartment, which just so happened to be the room for which I was assigned. While the rest of the house was furnished but not decorated, my room was rough and unfinished; both the sink in the kitchenette and bathroom were sitting on the couch, which itself pulled out to reveal a bed, thanks to Pete’s engineering genius. My feet made tracks in the sawdust on the floor as I padded to my bed/couch and back to the door.

Lugging the bags from the truck, we quickly got settled in our respective rooms and met downstairs in the kitchen for a late lunch. There wasn’t much to eat in the fridge, but I settled on a small bowl of crockpot chicken and a larger bowl of Frog Eye Salad. While I had a cream soda to drink, my mom asked Pete about the condition of the water from the tap. “It’s good well-water”, he said, “but we do have lime in it”. She pours herself a cup and sits down for a sip. “I don’t taste it”, she said, smacking her lips. “Oh, wait. It’s kind of an aftertaste”, she followed up, thinking that he was referring to the fruit. Upon hearing this, Ann and myself burst out laughing and waited for her recovery. It didn’t come.

After sharing a few good laughs over a quick bite, Pete offers to take me into Manchester, the downtown of the area, for a few last-minute items and to escape from the estrogen-laden company. Only 5 miles away, the town center is a hopping little joint, full of the mix of people you’d expect to see in any part of the country, open gays and lesbians included. Ah, the power of change.

On the way home, Pete decided to take me through Lathrop Lane, home street to Hamilton & Tricia and Judy. Stopping at Hamilton’s house, he was standing by his Lincoln, hands on his hips in the classic Hamilton pose. Seeing us idling in his driveway, he offered to take us by the barns to show us around. Following the leader, we drove across the way and took a brief look at Hamilton’s three classic cars, cattle, Trout, and land. Although it was a quick tour, I was able to get a pretty good idea of just how much trouble I had gotten myself into. Of course it wasn’t my idea to fly 1,000 miles to meet a bunch of farmers that I have the privilege of calling my cousins, but it certainly didn’t stop my mom from booking the airplane tickets (the first time).

It was a quick trip, but by the time we returned to Ann and Pete’s house, my mom had already crashed on her bed, only making it to page 2 of her John Grisham thriller, The Testament. I wasn’t tired at the moment, thanks to my power naps on the plane, so I went out for a while to take a few pictures of the picturesque landscape, experimenting with shots in the garden. I’m not sure at what point I decided that there are only so many pictures I can take of the same corn, but when I was back inside, mother had dragged herself from the bed and joined the living once again.

Trip Photos

We sped through security, I grabbed some breakfast, and we were boarding the plane in no time.

It was a normal flight. Thank God.

We were wheels down in Washington, DC at 9:02, with our connecting to Albany, NY departing at 9:40. Walking from the shuttle bus to the terminal, I peered up to the departures board and found that we were to depart from the same gate as we arrived. That was easy. What wasn’t, however, was getting our boarding pass. I almost shit a brick knowing that we might be stuck.

Because we were a last minute addition to the plane, neither of us were assigned seat numbers on the flight from DC to NY when we were re-booked the previous day. You would think it would be easy to just stick us in a seat, but that’s easier said than done when the flight is booked solid. We went up to the US Airways representative, presented proper identification, and told him what the problem was. He started biting his nails as his voice went up an octave. He starts scanning the screen with his eyes, his fingers flying over the keyboard trying to accommodate the frustrated passengers before him. To make his job even worse, he’s constantly being interrupted by angry Mexican co-workers screaming in their foreign tongue, a barrage of questions flying at him from all directions, and the time is ticking. He explains to us that our flight is in a holding pattern, giving us time to work out this situation, but before he could get the whole announcement out over the intercom, the angry Mexican chick grabs another microphone and, screaming over him, warns that this is the final boarding call for our flight, 3704 to “Aaaalbeaunie”.

My mom is a wreck, I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation, and this guy obviously can’t figure out his right from his left. He passes the chore onto another attendant at the counter and runs off, presumably with his tail between his legs. This new representative manages to get leagues farther than her half-wit counterpart, and promptly hands my mom a boarding pass without explaining what to do. Just standing there with that ‘oh shit’ look, she meekly asks if she can board the shuttle bus to the plane — the same one on which we rode only 15 minutes prior. She waves her hand and we scurry off to the bus, finding only one other person, leaving ourselves to question whether we’re on the right bus for a supposedly booked flight. No sooner did this thought cross my mind than the lady sitting in front of us turns to us and asks if we were going to Albany. “I sure hope so”, I thought to myself, “I sure hope so”.

Finally. We’re one step closer to Vermont.

We board the plane, a bit bigger than the last one, and I immediately fall asleep. On touchdown, I’m jarred awake and find that I’ve slept through the entire flight. No problem with me. My mom, on the other hand, had a pleasant conversation with an old man seated to her left. He engaged her in conversation while she was walking down the aisle and wouldn’t let go of her ear until the plane had landed. As he was walking away, he asked for a hug. I’d be surprised if he didn’t show up at the reunion thinking he was part of the family after that.

We walked through the jetway and were greeted by one of the nicest airports I had seen in a long time. I called Ann to let her know we had arrived safely and see where she was meeting us, but she was still 10 minutes out. We walked to baggage claim, thinking that our lost luggage would just be the icing on the cake for this vacation. Thankfully, we found both our bags enjoying a leisurely ride on the conveyor.

Stepping out to the curbside pickup area, we were greeted with the smiling face of Ann in the truck, and soon we were off on our way to Sunderland, Vermont — only a short 1:30 drive from the airport. Ugh.

Richard dropped us off at the Charleston International Airport at 5:00pm and some change. There is no parking in the drop-off and pick-up lane, so Richard grabs the bags out of the truck, bids his farewells, and is off on his merry way. We go inside, thankful that I was able to book a flight for the same day.

Nothing could stop us now!

We didn’t even get all the way through the front door before they so rudely informed us that our flight had been canceled. We were told to stand by the podium, but it must have been invisible, because I couldn’t find it. When it was our turn to face the wrath of the scary flight counter person lady, she grabbed my electronic tickets, made a couple of nasally noises and started shaking her head.

“What the hell is air traffic and why is it a reason to cancel a flight?”

Our flight had been canceled, but working some magic, I managed to get us booked on the earliest flight out of our dinky little Charleston airport at 7:32 the next day. At this point, it’s a dilemma whether to call someone and get them to come pick us up, grab a taxi, book a hotel, or crash at the airport. We’re too considerate to call someone to pick us up (Richard had prior obligations), too cheap to pay for a taxi, too close to book a hotel, so sleeping at the airport is the only option.

We found a spot and settled down — it wasn’t cozy, but it would work for the time being. My mom told me to go see if I could find internet anywhere in the airport, but I had no more luck near the windows at finding a free signal I could hop on and wi-surf. Walking through Hudson News on the fruitless trip, I spy something on the shelf that looks interesting. $19.39 later, I walk out with the latest copy of MacWorld, MacLife, and WIRED. I walk back to our seat, marked by our luggage, plopped the three magazines on the chair, and said “There’s my internet”.

Sitting back down, I pull out my laptop and look through my movie collection to see what would be occupying my time for the next half of a day. Around finding “Hot Fuzz” in the long list of pirated (ARGH!) movies, my stomach started to growl — time for dinner and my first meal of the day. I stuffed my MacBook back in the bag and went to the Food Court to investigate. Needless to say, $9.00 for a ham sandwich would certainly not cut the mustard. Scooping up our luggage and mustering the troops (erm, my mom), we made our way through the jubilous crowd greeting their loved ones and eventually plopped down in a comfy booth in Magnolia Grill. Dinner wasn’t what I would expect from an airport; we both had the cheeseburger with a fried green tomato, but the soup I ordered had a less-than-desired after effect. When the bill came, the $27 charge didn’t come as a surprise, but we both busted out laughing as we realized that for the price of dinner and the magazines we could have gone home in a taxi and relaxed. Oh well; it was too late to change our minds now.

Things started slowing down in the airport around 8:00pm as the stores and Food Court locked their doors. By that time, we had found two adjacent benches without arms to sprawl out on in the lobby. I turned on “Bedtime Stories” because my mom hadn’t seen it. She ended up dozing for about 20 minutes, but woke up in time to catch the happy, feel-good ending.

Shortly after the movie, I had to go visit the little boys room, followed by a walk to calm my restless legs. Sleeping lately has been hard enough, but trying to sleep in the airport is pure hell.

Trip Photos

Flight change email came in at 11:15!!!! It said “significant changes”!…This NEVER happens!!! Why with you guys????!!!!

I’m beginning to think I’m the jinx.

At this point, my mom has no clue what’s going on. I’m handling everything so he doesn’t decide to flip out. Well, Ann calls the house shortly after I hang up with her and informs my mom of the situation at hand. Stomping up the stairs, she comes in and starts yelling her head off. I tell her to go downstairs so that I can take care of it. I’m only 18 — apparently that’s too young to take care of myself?

Anyway, I’m using 3 phones, talking with Travelocity, Continental Airlines, and US Airways trying to get something straightened out. A few little half-truths and a dead grandmother later, I’m knee-deep in confirmation numbers and spouting off the credit card number to the woman on the other end of the phone. I think she likes me because she continued to call me “babe”. But back to the story…

After 30 minutes of crying and pouting and yelling and screaming and kicking and bitching (whew!), I’ve managed to (a) calm my mother down to the point where she can manage coherent sentences, (b) made a reservation for a different airline at a different time connecting to a different airport than previously, and (c) upset my father. Needless to say, I’m only proud of the first two accomplishments.

I’m not so sure what I can do about the dreaded C, but on a lighter note, here is our itinerary:

So you’re welcome to track us as we make our way to Vermont.

I’ll have more updates to come and pictures to boot, so make sure you check up with me.