2009 Family Vacation, Day 1

WARNING: I just re-read this and realized how much it rambles... actually, TJ read it and told me that it rambles, so I re-read it and decided that he was right (don't get used to it, TJ). So, I may try to fix it later, like in a few weeks later, when my brain is not so fried.... in the meantime, sorry for never-ending-blog-post which you may or may not want to read.

We awoke early that Wednesday morning. The sun was not yet up, and the warm, heavy, southern air clung to the darkness as we loaded our luggage into TJ’s truck. Our flight out of Birmingham was to depart at 7:00am, which meant that we needed to leave our house by at least 5:00 in order to overcome the one hour drive to the airport. We tiptoed and scurried around the house, trying our best not to wake up Lexie, our gracious house sitter, who was sleeping soundly in the guest bedroom. TJ scooped Tommy out of his bed as I grabbed his shoes and the final items needed for our journey. We managed to make it out of the door and almost to the truck when we heard the barking. Cracker had worked himself into a complete tizzy, and was incessantly barking, yelping, thrashing, and anything else that he could think of to grab the attention of the owners he was convinced had forgotten him. Mere seconds later, as TJ strapped a still sleepy Tommy into the car seat, I could see Lexie through the kitchen window trying to calm down our worried bulldog. “So much for not waking Lexie up!” I thought to myself.

Soon we were on the road, with the miles melting away. Tommy was awake by this point, absorbing all the excitement and anticipation that fills the start of family vacations. “We going to the air-PORT!?!? We going to see Aunt RAY-chil?!?!” Tommy would half ask and half exclaim. After months of planning it seemed that we had adequately built him up for the trip. This would be a trip of firsts for Tommy, first plane ride, first time so incredibly far from home, first time out of the south, and the first time meeting our friends the Thursby’s. So many new things at once can sometimes be tough on little ones, so I wanted him to be prepared and to know what to expect.

When we finally made it to the airport, there were no immediate parking spaces available on the first couple of levels in the parking deck. By the time we had gone around the circular driveway a couple of times, we were all becoming anxious about the minutes whittling away until our scheduled departure time. We finally found a space in section F-2 where we parked the truck and realized that we had less than an hour until the plane left.

After consulting a map twice, and getting at least one other airport patron lost with us, we finally found our way to the airport terminal through the maze of a parking deck. We got our 3 bags checked with ease and made our way up the escalator towards the security checkpoint. When we rounded the corner, we saw the line.

The Birmingham Airport was a much busier place than either of us had expected, and it appeared that early morning flights were very popular judging by the security line that repeatedly snaked around in all directions. When it was finally our turn, I took Tommy and my purse, and TJ took Tommy’s carry-on bag and my 50 pound camera/laptop/DVD player/video camera/miscellaneous wires/chargers bag.Tommy and I breezed through the line with ease, as TJ struggled to retrieve the backpack that had to go through the scanner three times. TJ shot me an I-told-you-so look that I pretended to ignore as he proceeded to question me again about the need to carry on so many electronics.

The plane was already boarding by the time Tommy and I had made a brief bathroom stop and found our way to the gate. We were in the first boarding group and I found a nice section of three seats next to the wing of the plane. I strapped Tommy into the window seat and I grabbed the middle one as TJ put up the carry on’s and sat in the aisle seat. Soon, we had made it to the runway and I could hear the roar of the jet engines firing up. The force of the airplane as it left the ground, gently nudged us into our seats. I heard a slight chuckle from the seats behind us Tommy flashed a giant grin and shouted “WWWEEEEEEE!!”

The flight was short as Tommy filled the time with a million questions. Before we knew it, we were descending into Baltimore, which was our first and only layover. As the plane approached the runway and we could feel the deceleration and hear the landing gear deploy. Tommy took great delight in this additional action and giggled as he exclaimed “We’re going to CRASH!!” loud enough for the entire plane to hear! Such a loud proclamation prompted an immediate and synchronous “SSHHHHH!” from me and TJ. I then quickly explained to my three year old that we were going to land, not crash, and that we really shouldn’t say such words on an airplane. He nodded in agreement, and went back to giggling once the wheels touched the pavement.

The sun had finally risen in Baltimore and Tommy was still in his Superman pajama’s. With all the hurrying of getting to the airport, we had not had time to change him into his “Clark Kent” clothes. He was getting a big kick out of the flight attendants and everyone else calling him Superman, so I decided that it was a good idea to just leave pj's on. We had a few minutes to kill at the Baltimore Airport, so I pulled out the new robot toy that I had gotten Tommy for the trip, and we all shared a chocolate muffin from the Starbucks located next to our gate.

It wasn’t long before we were in the air again and headed for Albany, New York. This plane was practically empty and the flight attendants had taken special notice of the small Superman in our company. They graciously brought us coloring books, crayons, a deck of playing cards, a special set of wings for Tommy, and some airplane shaped cookies. We made especially good use of the playing cards which we used to practice numbers, shapes, and colors.

We landed in Albany without incident, quickly found our luggage on the conveyor belt, and made it to the shuttle bus that was from the Thrifty Rental Car agency located just outside the airport grounds. When we reserved the rental car several months prior to our trip, we were promised a "Dodge Charger, or equivalent". What sat before us on that bright, clear, Albany afternoon, was a silver Kia Optimus. Not exactly what I would consider an equivalent to a Dodge Charger. But, the rental car associate was especially friendly and polite, so we just went with it.

As soon as we settled into the rental car, we plugged up the TomTom and entered in the Thursby's address. We only had 200 miles to go. We made a brief detour to grab some lunch at McDonald's while we were in Albany. We knew that we weren't in Alabama anymore when the cashier had a difficult time understanding TJ's southern accent.

The drive up I-87 through the Adirondak Park was beautiful. The leaves were just starting to change from green to bright yellows and reds and the mountains were always peaking over the horizon in the distance. We made a pit stop at a rest area in the park and I took the first of what would be many photos of our vacation.

It seemed that the last leg of our journy would never end. We passed mountains, lakes, farms, and even the occasional wind turbine before we reached the much anticipated town of Malone. It had been over three years since we had last seen our friends, the Thursby's, and I wondered if their oldest son Tristan would still recognize me. Rachel had told me that she had not told Tristan of our visit as a surprise. To this day I do not know how she kept that a secret for so long.

We pulled onto their street, carefully scanning each house number and looking for a car that matched theirs, until we spotted Adam standing outside. He explained to us that Rachel and the boys, Tristan and Conner were inside waiting on us. We walked in their front door, and there stood Tristan, with his hands covering his eyes. Rachel was standing behind him giving

him instructions on keeping his eyes closed. She flashed a giant smile at us as we came through the door. I tried my best to sneak up to Tristan, with Tommy right behind me. When Tristan opened his eyes and saw me right in front of him, he jumped into my arms and gave me one of the biggest hugs that I have ever had. All the years apart vanished in an instant. I kneeled down to get a good look at both Tristan and Conner, who also came up and gave me a big hug. Tommy wondered over to where we were, and Tristan immediately knew all about Tommy. Rachel then said "And who's this?" pointing behind me. "TJ!!!!!" Tristan yelled as he tackled TJ with a hug.

It's amazing how fast we settled into that first night there. It was almost as if we had never been separated by miles, or years apart. We just picked up directly where we left off. And it really did feel like we were at home...