East Coast Day 1

Yesterday I got up nice and early so I could spend a little extra time cuddling with the kids before I took off on my adventures. I got Leeann off to school, but first we took some good-bye pictures.    Are these seriously not the cutest kids ever?   Aw, I miss them a ton already! I left Albany at 10:30 and my flight flew out a half-hour late at about 1:30. The flight was relatively okay because it was short, only 1 hour 18 minutes of flight time. Unfortunately it was bumpy almost the entire time, meaning we didn't get any snacks! We flew in one of those sweet planes that had a little t.v. in the back of every seat. I got to watch t.v., watch our flight pattern and even create a playlist of my favorite songs to listen to. It's amazing how much easier it is to withstand turbulence when you're distracted by all sorts of great things. I almost burst into tears however, listening to Tim McGraw's, If you're reading this, because I was sitting 1.5 inches away from a young soldier who just got to visit his family for a too-short weekend before he leaves for his first tour. Somehow I felt safer sitting next to him on the plane. I was sure to thank him for his service before we landed. I'm so grateful for our troops. We landed in Salt Lake City just about on-time despite our late departure. My next flight flew out an hour after we landed and my departure gate was in the same wing so I wasn't too concerned about making my connecting flight. Doing the math in my head I figured I'd be on the next flight for 6 hours. I decided I probably should grab a sandwhich, because I didn't think I could make it that long without real food.  (Aren't the mountains gorgeous?) So I wandered back and forth between two shops trying to figure out which one had a sandwhich that would be more my style. I've been known to be a somewhat picky eater! I looked up at the clock and had almost 20 minutes before my next flight left so I decided to head to the gate with my food in hand. No one else was there. I casually walked up to the attendant (not wanting to give away the fact that I'm not a frequent flier who was just about in a panic because no one else was there) and he called me by name. That's not good! I asked him if I was late and he said, "Well, the plane hasn't left yet, but you're the last one on. I thought maybe you'd gotten confused by the time change." I smiled and headed onto the plane as the attendant closed the door to the terminal.  Two things you should know about me: I'm not good at math and I'm not great at being places on-time. I usually think I'll make it on time, but instances like that happen a little too often. Whoops! As I was filing onto the plane the captain was giving his pre-flight information. "We have a strong tail-wind so our expected flight time is 3 hour and 33 minutes." Again, I panicked. I thought it was 6+ hours. Am I on the wrong flight? I looked at a guy I was walking past and said, "Are we headed to New Jersey?"  "Yes we are," he assured me. As my panic began to subside and I spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how my calculations were so off. I finally gave up. I'm so bad at math.  This next leg of the flight didn't have the nifty seat-back t.v.'s but it was playing a good movie and I was sitting next to a BYU professor who was very talkative so the flight went by pretty quickly. I really enjoyed my yummy sandwhich, but I was regularly taunted by his Cinnabon. Yummy smelling goodies shouldn't be allowed on a plane! Despite some turbulence it was a pretty pleasant flight because we had an empty seat between us.  As expected we arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport a bit early. I had to wait about an hour for SaraJane to get off of work and make it to the airport.  It was so nice to have my feet planted firmly on the ground! I'm not a super fearful person, but it's hard not to think about the fact that one of the 9/11 planes took off from that very airport. The attempted bombing at Times Square just a few days ago didn't help. Funny thing, they caught the bomber trying to fly out of JFK late Monday night, probably about the same time I came in... at the airport I almost flew into.   But enough about that. I'M ON THE EAST COAST!   It was so good to see SaraJane. I'm so glad I'm here! I'm in New Joyzee! I won't mention how many basic traffic laws SaraJane broke as she was trying to figure out how to get us home from the airport. Maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt though. After all, I'm an Oregonian. Perhaps blinkers aren't that important, exit only signs are are only for decoration and stop signs are mere suggestions here in Jersey? We're going to clock several hundred miles over the next week. I'll be happy to let you know of other strange Jersey laws. I'm proud to be a back-seat driver! We finally made it to sleep around 1:30 a.m. local time. I'm all discombobulated now. A three hour time change may not seem like much, but that combined with a day of travel is enough to wreak havoc on my internal clock. I'm not sure when I should eat or when I should sleep. I'm all turned around!