A Quest...Achieved

I am a bumbling traveler. This – I have already well established. What is a lesser known and more embarrassing fact, although – no less valid, is that I am equally unable to plan a trip.

I tried. Really I did. I surfed multiple websites, looked at solo offers, combination offers and then – I admitted defeat. You see, I don’t like choices. My husband will confirm this. Consequently, picking paint colors, choosing tile, and – well – mostly any remodeling decision is very troubling for me. Luckily, we share a similar taste so he picks three possibilities and then presents them to me. Hence, I’m not overwhelmed and most of the time, my first choice was his as well.

I digress.

I gave up, closed the travllocity, orbitz, and whatever the other seven browser addresses were on my screen and sent out an SOS. I called my bestest friend from high school. Erika is a world traveler. Her parents own a travel agency. They planned our honeymoon – a totally awesome cruise to Bermuda! I called in a favor. Of course I shoomzed and loved on her in all the appropriate ways that a bestest friend should when calling in a mungo favor. And, of course – as always – she came through.

Brief exerpts from my schoomzing email:

Hey - I need to call in a best-friend favor (otherwise know as I don't have any idea what the heck I'm doing and you will) favor. I need to travel to Missouri in March for the National Share training. I have gone to the do-it-all-in-one place sites to make travel arrangements...but ICK...there are too many choices and it is sooooo > overwhelming. I managed to do this …. but of course I also managed to find the one place where I can't add a hotel and save bu-ku bucks.

***

I want:

* a mid morning flight out of Albany, NY on Thrusday, March 5th ultimately landing in St. Louis - Lambert airport. (1 stop is fine)

* a connected deal to a nice hotel** in St. Charles (the conference is at > the St. Charles Convention Center)

* I don't mind being a minor distance away from the center, but I'd like to be able to walk there in the morning.

* an afternoon flight on Sunday March 8th (the conference ends at noon on Sunday) getting me back into Albany by 7:30-8pm.

Is this doable or am I such a travelling virgin that I have my head in the clouds?

** - by "nice hotel" I mean somthing with more than two levels and has an indoor pool/whirlpool. Hey - a girl needs her comforts, right?

Ha! This is funny even to me as I re-read my request! However, I must give props where they are due…for my sweetest friend ever planned the perfect trip!!! Every trip however has blips and posts to come will expane - but this post will focus on the last **.

Serves me right for being selfish – really. I mean, a trip about grieving my angel baby and learning more how to support others as they grieve theirs shouldn’t really be contingent on lounging in 105 degree hot, bubbling water – with the jets directly on my lower back as I float without a care in the world…
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*(sorry – I got a little lost there for a minute)

However, it seemed less selfish after the first day of crying so hard that I was sure my skin had expanded about a ¼ inch to the naked eye!

Suit – check. Towel – check. Room Key-Card – check. (And oh boy do I wish I had a picture of this for you, but alas – my there-will-be-no-hot-tub-in-your-future…ALL WEEKEND grief prevented me from the foresight to get my camera)

BROKEN!

With a ½ inch cheap plywood as the temporary cover, no-less. *Sigh* - No…BIG *SIGH*

And so,I'm ashamed to admit I whined – just a little, but I did – to the other participants. And, miracle of miracles – one of them who was staying at the fancy, shamancy, connected-to-the conference-center hotel was more than happy to let me use their facilities.

GOD BLESS THIS SWEET AND WONDERFUL LADY. (of course she was from New Hampshire- my sister state!)

An already long story short – I tried once, too late. I tried twice – tweens had taken over the pool area. And then, thrice – sweet victory at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.


The conference was over. I was mentally free to just – be. Yes there were a few teens returned for a repeat performance, but they were in the far side of the pool and – I – alone in the hot tub. I can tune them out. They were almost sweet background noise.

I lowered myself into the all-encompassing relaxation water.

The background noise began to fade away. A sweet whoosh - whoosh as the jets sent waves of water bubbling against the tile edge was taking over my senses. And that’s when I heard it.

“Emma. Emma, over here. Watch this! I can do a handstand without holding my nose!”


I was out of tears. All I could do was smile in the knowledege that this was the time I was meant to be in the hot tub.

Of Course it was ...of course.

What A "TRIP" - (Pun Intended!)

I haven’t flown in over five years. I am a bumbling traveller...seriously - but just awkward and odd looking enough that I couldn't be a threat. I walked past each part of the terminal with my jaw continuously dropping another millimeter. And then - handed the security guard my baggage claim ticket instead of a boarding pass. I was horrified! He just looked at me with a pitying smile.

And – although my final destintion is really a world in itself, the journey getting there is just as astounding.

I mean – look at this.

It is like they read my mind or something…a Meditation Room! I could picture it in my mind immediately – a calm, quiet room filled with cozy pillows, and soft meditative music playing in a surround-sound, straight to your soul kind of way. And, HECK YEAH - you know I followed the signs to get a picture of the actual room, but alas – it was for business class only. So, my pastel, pillowed low-tone image holds. What the actual room looks like I will never know.

And my journey continued through a virtual time warp, it seems. For as “new age” and “futuristic” as a meditation room in an Eastern New York airport terminal seems, I arrived here – at this Newark, New Jersey total throw-back of a 1950’s diner! Mmmm- Ruby’s tasted good!!!!

I sat there in that glossy red booth, each foot in a large black and white tiled square and The Terminal came to mind. You know – that Tom Hanks movie where he lived IN the airport terminal because of an immigration issue.

I could live here, I think. I passed nearly every necessary ( and unnecessary) daily life-requirement on the way to this sweet little diner. I passed bookstores, coffee shops, beauty salons and spas – retailers of all kinds, and even a sultry looking wine bar that was so inviting I nearly took a seat, at 11:30 am.

I look like a tourist of the most annoying kind; high on life and camera happy. (fyi – they can glare if they like for I tip like a tourist of the best kind. Being a humble server in my rural little ski town – I get it)

I admit it – I am high on life! This trip is the beginning of something much bigger than even I know. I can feel it. Or, more accurately, I feel the need to document it. I don’t know why, but lately my best ideas come from nothing, thin-air if you will, and I find, if I just nod and obey – good things happen.

Kind of like what happened at the first gate I approached this morning. The gate attendant looked stressed through her kind and welcoming smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of talking to me, she spoke into the small amplifier in her left hand. “Hello and welcome to flight 2643. This fight is over booked. I need three volunteers. If you volunteer I will get to your final destination today and give you a $200 flight credit to use within a year.” Intruiging. “And” she added with just a hint of desperation in her voice, “a lunch voucher.”

“Sure” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “I’m traveling alone and in no great hurry.” She looked relieved. In the end, there was enough space on the plane after all (the original issue being something to do with the maximum weight of the the luggage on board and not the number of people), but this sweet woman was so grateful for my “flexibile thinking” (a recently learned skill to be sure) that she gave me an in-flight voucher for a drink! Heck Yeah Baby – I got me a glass of air-merlot!

Stand By…Much more to come!

UPDATED: I'm here but the internet connection is spotty! Come on back later tonight for a bulleted list of "You know Cara is travelling to a warmer climate when..."