Travel is an intentional act to get out of your comfort zone and encounter new experiences. What makes it thrilling and satisfying is also what can make it stressful. While planning our latest adventure, I discovered the video feature of this platform. I have no desire to be an “influencer”, if I’m honest I don’t even understand the concept. But I do like to watch travel posts and I will happily look at anyone’s vacation photos. So for this trip, I will be posting a few videos and writing about our experiences.
To break the ice, let me introduce travel mode me…..at 6:00 am …..doing what I always do. I can’t sleep. I check and recheck our travel route, connecting flights, and airport maps. I can’t control the weather or airlines operations, but having a little knowledge of options if I need a plan a, b, or c is how my extreme type a personality copes with the total lack of control that comes with air travel. I have also decided just to share my travel day anxiety. It makes no sense and I can’t control it, but it doesn’t stop me.
When I get a text it is time to check in online, I still get a knot in my stomach. The process has gotten so much easier over the years, since the days of hand entering passport information only to be told there was a problem and check in couldn’t be completed online (that used to ensure no sleep). I had already uploaded my passport shortly after we purchased tickets, so with my trusty iPhone, I got us all checked in on the airline app within minutes. A few clicks while sitting in my car between meetings and we are good to go. Now I only have to worry about hurricane Helene staying away from our connecting airport (Atlanta), we should be on track for a good flight. Leave it to us to pick a route flying into a hurricane the day it makes landfall.
Throughout the night, we got weather alerts about the hurricane’s potential effects. Oddly the Atlanta airport does not have alerts for our travel date…only the day after. So we will not be changing our flights and hoping for the best. Yikes!
After a brief bit of confusion where my husband thought our flight was at 2:00 pm based on the original ticket and I knew it was at 1:00 because I obsessively check the updates, we made it to the airport without incident. Other than me assuming he was procrastinating on purpose to make a point, and he assuming that I wanted to leave an hour early, which we cleared up on the drive, we had no issues getting to the airport. The late start (for me), made me anxious, but we arrived with plenty of time to spare.
The big excitement occurred on the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal. Our driver stopped to see if a man parked next to the fence needed help or to be picked up. He was parked sideways where there was clearly no spot. When the driver stopped to see if he needed help, the man came to the door of the shuttle and said, “I need to use the bathroom”. The shuttle driver politely told him there was not a bathroom in that area. The man replied, “I know, I am making one.” He then proceeded to pee on the fence. Who does that in a busy airport lot? Crazy times in America. It might be good that we are leaving the country.
Prisoner of Hopes 