Caribbean

 Sunday, February 22: “The Flights”

We had a 6:00 am departure flight from Louisville but American Airlines delivered us to Chicago almost three hours late.  We waited at the gate as our departure time was pushed back.  We waited on the tarmac in Louisville for our turn to take off.  We waited again on the tarmac in Chicago because our gate hadn’t been cleared.  The long and the short of it was that we missed our connecting flight and so we then missed our cruise ship in New Orleans.

Once we deplaned in Chicago we went directly to the American Airlines travel assistance desk but the wait time to talk to someone was well over a half hour.  It was then that we learned that we had been automatically rebooked through Dallas but our plane had already left.  Our new flight would have arrived in New Orleans after the ship had sailed so it didn’t do us any good.  Unfortunately, our luggage did make the flight.  American Airlines wouldn’t deliver it to any ports of call so all of our things were sent back to Louisville.  Unhelpfully, the travel assistant said, “this is why you should never book your flight for the same day that you set sail.”  She was trying to blame us for this mess and there was no apology for delivering us to Chicago almost three hours late.

We we done with dealing with American Airlines.  Since we booked our flight through Norwegian Cruise Lines we called them and asked them to rebook us.  The first port of call for our ship was at the Porta de Maya in Mexico.  Our travel agent booked us for a flight to Mexico City for Sunday night.  There were a lot of hotels to choose from on the Hilton app so I picked one in the tourist section in the belief that we would be safer there.  By the time that we arrived at our hotel we had been traveling for fifteen hours and we slept soundly after a stress-filled day.     

Monday  February 23: “Chetumala”

The drug lord, “El Mencho,” was killed by the U.S. and Mexico in Puerto Vallarta.  Even though Puerto Vallarta is over five hundred miles away from Mexico City, El Mencho’s cartel was getting its revenge by bombing tourist areas, hotels, and even a Costco.  In an abundance of caution, the Mexico City police were on high alert and I woke up to the sight of at least a dozen police cars, with their lights, patrolling around our hotel.  Maybe staying in the tourist section wasn’t such a great idea.

We arrived at the airport early for our flight to Chetumala.  When we landed we found ourselves in the smallest terminal that I have ever been to.  I am proud of us because, at this point in our journey, we did not panic even though we had every right to do so.  My phone wasn’t working for some reason.  We didn’t have our luggage or a hotel room or even a cab for the ninety minute drive to Porta de Maya.  It was then that we knew that we had to depend on the kindness of strangers.  There was only one woman who spoke broken English at the terminal and she worked for a local cab company.  She arranged for a car to take us to a hotel that sat next to a Walmart. Further, she assigned a driver to pick us up the next day to take  us to the port.  It reaffirms my faith in humanity when this total stranger, who struggled to communicate with us, took the time and effort to work out the details of our trip.

Because my phone still wasn’t working, we had no reservations for the hotel and took the risk that there would be a room available for us.  Luckily, they had a room so we checked in and then walked to Walmart to buy enough clothes to last us for two weeks on our cruise.  When we got back to our room I opened my packages and it turns out that one of my two outfits was too small, so I ended up wearing the same set of clothes for the whole time that we were away on our cruise.       

Tuesday  February 24: “Costa de Maya”

Our driver arrived early but, because he didn’t speak a word of English, it was a quiet ninety minute drive to the port.  Our ship hadn’t come in yet so we had to wait for almost two hours outside of the gates because security would not let us in until we had a place to go.  Finally, we got on board and went straight to the bar to get a drink. 

February 24 to March 8: “The Cruise”

We had been to a lot of Caribbean ports before so we barely left the ship and, if we did leave, it was only to buy our grandson a onesie.  Aside from that, we played a lot of trivia, read, worked crossword puzzles, and drank a lot of strawberry daiquiris.  The only event that was notable was when we arrived in Panama there were about a hundred protestors outside of our ship because President Trump had threatened to take over the canal.  It was a peaceful march but it was a reminder that other countries have a lot of problems with the foreign policy of the United States.

Sunday, March 8: “The Journey Home”

We didn’t bother to pack at the end of the cruise but instead left our Walmart clothes in our cabin.  Fortune continued to frown on us.  The line to get through security in New Orleans snaked around the terminal and then into the attached parking garage.  It was so bad that the line made the national news and it took us about an hour and a half to get through it.  Then, after we boarded our connecting flight in Tampa Bay, we sat on the tarmac for over an hour because the airspace on the east coast was crowded.  We arrived in Louisville two hours after our schedule landing time and it took us about twelve hours to get home.  I am beginning to question why we travel so much.

“Funny Quotes”

• At our first port a woman, who was trying to sell us a tour package, approached us and asked, “what are you looking for?”  I was feeling a little salty so I replied, “a prostitute.”  She replied with, “that is not available.”

• There was a sign posted in one of the shops in port that said “we will not bargain down our prices unless you dance naked.”  I said the the lady at the counter, “I am will to dance naked.  Do we do this here or do you have a special room for that.”  Without missing a beat the lady said “ain’t nobody want to see that.”  We both laughed as I am sure that she has heard my joke many times before.

• There was a saleswoman on the ship who was trying to sell us a piece of modern art.  It was a naked lady made out of glass with the head of a rabbit.  When she pressed me, I said “I may buy it because it will look really good in my garbage can back home.”

 “The Passengers” 

As I looked around at my fellow cruise passengers, I thought to myself, “This is exactly what I am trying to avoid.”  They were all old people who spent a lot of time by the pool, letting everything hang out.  Both men and women had huge bellies, oversized breasts, and big butts.  It was kinda of disgusting and I had to turn away.  There were tattoos everywhere: behind the neck, under the ear, thighs, calves, and shoulders.  Some were huge, colorful, and artistic while others were small and demure, like the outline of a heart on the wrist.  Some of the old people walked around with zoned out looks on their faces and their mouths were wide open.  They shifted their weight from side to side because their hips had given out and it hurt to walk.  They had lost all sense of their sexuality and must have known that they were just one step away from the nursing home. 

I don’t  like being associated with these old people but we have more in common than I would like to admit.  Just like them, Tracey and I have been taking one cruise after another just to break up the year.  I have lost my identity as an Ironman, a family man, and a teacher.  Like King Triton from “The Little Mermaid,” I have shrunk away from who I was and am becoming small and shriveled, like everyone else.  For example, I have gained a lot of weight so my tits and stomach are too big.  When I took the stairs on the ship my breath became labored and I became light headed.  While waiting between shows in the Atrium Lounge, I fell asleep.  When I woke up and looked around I noticed several other passengers had fallen asleep as well.  They were much older than me but seemed to be mocking me with the unspoken message of  “This is your future!”

Stalingrad

Introduction

I don’t like to read about modern war because there is no honor involved and an ordinary soldier has no chance to prove his bravery. Today, it is all about machines. Drones are used to attack an enemy and they are so advanced that they can kill a single man who is hiding in an underground tunnel. Or dozens of cheap drones can be used to take out million dollar airplanes. I know this because I have seen the videos on social media. WWI and WWII saw mechanization removing the humanity from war as many soldiers never even caught a glimpse at the enemy that they were shooting at or bombing from on high. But it was different from the Battle of Stalingrad where the Soviets and

Nazis knew each other as they were fighting block by block, house to house, floor to floor and, sometimes, room to room. It was personal and brutal. What makes it even more fascinating to me was that either side could have won. At one point the Germans had taken over 90 percent of the city and the only thing that saved the Russians was that they had reserves coming in from Asia, allowing them

to stand fast. The Dantesque scene that will always haunt me was the thought of the crows descending on the streets of Stalingrad to peck out the eyes of the corpses for food as the frozen bodies were too stiff for birds to penetrate with their beaks. An estimated two million soldiers died at Stalingrad, plus

tens of thousands of civilians, so the eye-hungry crows had a bountiful feast.

Life in the City

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Germans used Russian corpses to corduroy the roads

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Snow was so deep that the Russians cut off the legs of hundreds of dead horses and used them to mark where the road was under the snow.

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So cold that one group was sitting in a circle and literally froze to death. Thought that they were still alive until saw the marble skin.

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Walking around in circles at hospital because had to keep moving to avoid freezing to death.

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Street to street. House to house. Room to room. Throw grenades in. Put up chicken wire. Hooks

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Stuck in one room for weeks. Everyone had to crap in the same corner and the dung pile became a pyramid.

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Soldiers fall on an old carcass of a horse, beat open the head, and swallow the brains raw.

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Russian artillery fire blew a hole into a railroad station, igniting the corpses that had been stacked against its walls up to the level of the second story windows. The frozen bodies became a gruesome

bonfire.

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The dead are lying, grotesquely twisted, their mouths and eyes still wide open with horror, frozen stiff, with their skulls torn open and their bowels hurled out.

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Life in the Hospital

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Wounded arm and bandaged it. Line of lice going into wound. Itching and infected

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Starved to death. Autopsy shows no body fat and the heart shrank to one third of normal size. Severe shrinkage of muscle.

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Dysentery. Typhus. Typhoid. Hepatitis. Jaundice Combination of cold, stress, exhaustion. Exposure.

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Wounded outside of hospitals, waiting to freeze to death.. Lightly wounded fixed first then sent back. Severely wounded were places next to the doors or windows so that the cold would take them more quickly. Head injuries took last place because could take three hours of surgery. Walking wounded got the flights out because twenty could stand in the same amount of space as four cots

•No fuel for heat so pneumonia, and an increased weakness to other infections.•

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Shoot self through a loaf of bread to eliminate close range powder burns. Shot self in stomach or chest, more painful than arm or leg but guaranteed a successful escape.

Incapacitated patients who had been piled in trucks, which then ground to a halt, froze to death in the open. Piles of frozen corpses left by the field hospital because the ground was frozen too hard to bury them. Put bodies against the wall for insulation. A fire left patients to fend for themselves. One

guy made it but was on fire and sizzled when he lay down in the snow.  The lack of bandages was serious for the cases of severe frostbite. Often, toes and fingers stayed behind in the filthy bandages when we changed them. Top of a tin can for a scalpel. An article made from silk was taken apart to be used as stitches.  Scissors were used for amputations.

Lice

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Bury clothes in snow except for one corner so the lice could find their way out. Didn’t solve

problem but got rid of some of the lice.

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A trail of lice going up from the arm into the cast.

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The worst part was the growth of lice on the wounded. “On the operating table we had to scrape lice off uniforms and skin with a spatula and throw them into the fire. We also had to remove them from eyebrows and beards where they clustered like grapes.

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Delousing was impossible. Medical orderlies changing bandages found a grey mass of lice crawling on their own wrists and arms from the patient. When a man died, the lice could be seen leaving the body en masse in search of living flesh.

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Anger at their treatment in the pow camps led to prisoners scraping handfuls of lice off of their

bodies and throwing them ar their guards. Such protests provoked summary execution.

The Gulags

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The Germans limped on frost bitten feet, their lips were cracked right open from the frost, their faces had a waxen quality, as if their lives were already slipping away. Exhausted men slumped to the snow and never rose again. Those in need of more clothes stripped corpses of clothing as soon as they could after the moment of death because once a body froze then it became impossible to undress.

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Cannibalism. Scoop out brains. Eat the newly dead because their flesh is more tender. Sometimes they didn’t wait until the prisoner had died.

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Cannibalism. Thin slices of meat cut from frozen corpses were boiled up. The end product was offered as ‘camel meat.”

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Corpses without arms or legs. Human heads with the brains scooped out or a torso minus livers and kidneys. The cannibals were furtive at first, moving among the dead to hack off a limb and eat it raw. Their tastes quickly matured and they searched for the newly dead, those just turning cold, and

thus were more tender. Finally, they roamed in packs, defying anyone to stop them. They even

helped the dying to die. Scattered across the compound were quartered stomachs, headless

cadavers, arms and legs stripped of flesh and meat. They had thousands of corpses to choose from

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While in gulag, going to cess pool, straining shit to get millet, washing it and eating it for the second

time.

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Mice descended on a soldier whose feet were frost bitten and chewed off two of his toes while he

slept.

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The dead were laid out each morning outside the barrack block. These naked, frozen corpses were stacked up in an ever extending line down one side of the camp. At Beketovka, the mountain of bodies was about a hundred yards long and six feet high.

•Conclusion

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Reading about it again to study it, not just read.

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The Russians regarded the butchery as a punitive crusade, a purgative.

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Out of 107,000 Sixth Army soldiers herded into prison camps less than five thousand back from the Soviet prisons.

Man, by nature, is an aggressive beast so there will always be war. You may as well outlaw hurricanes.

The Body Keeps the Score

         I read “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk because it has been on the New York Times best seller list for so long.  It is not the type of book that I would usually read but I decided to give it a try because I want to learn more bout myself.  Some of the passages hit me so hard that I wrote a blog entry about it.

        The key issue of the nature of the parent-child relationship is how parents felt about, and interacted with, their kids.  Did the parents fail to greet their kids when they had been away?  Did their parents’ faces never light up when they looked at them.  A mother who was too depressed to notice them.  A father who treated them like he wished they had never been born.

        The children of unpredictable parents often clamored for attention and became intensely frustrated in the face of small challenges.  These are the people who felt unwanted as children and don’t remember feeling safe with anyone while growing up.

        Some kids’ disturbing behavior started out as frustrated attempts to communicate distress. When they walk around projecting the message “Don’t mess with me,” they are not likely to be bothered.  Some people don’t remember anybody with whom they felt safe.  For them, engaging with dogs may be much safer than dealing with human beings.  Managing your terror all by yourself gives rise to another set of problems: dissociation, despair, addiction, disconnections and explosions.

        It is common for traumatized people to lose all memory of events in question only to regain access to them in bits and pieces at a later date.  Memories that you experience are not something with a beginning, a middle, and an end but rather in fragments of sensations, images, and emotions. Flashes of images that keep flooding into the mind and they can’t be stopped.  People who suffer flashbacks often organize their lives around trying to protect against them.  They may compulsively go to the gym to pump iron or they may numb themselves with alcohol.  

        Many mental health problems, from drug addiction to alcoholism, start as attempts to cope with the unbearable physical pain of of our emotions.  Alcoholism starts off as attempts to cope with emotions that became unbearable because of a lack of human contact and support.

        Almost all mental suffering involves either trouble in creating workable and satisfying relationships or difficulties in regulating arousal, as in the case of habitually becoming enraged or overexcited.  Friends and family members can lose patience with people who get stuck in their grief or hurt.  No one is interested in the bad news that they have to report.  They often survive with resigned compliance.

        There are many split off parts in the human psyche that were created in order to survive so that your undamaged self can emerge.  Managers, for example, prevent humiliation and abandonment to keep the person organized and safe.  Managers who are obsessed with power are usually created as a bulwark against feeling helpless. They are not emotionally available. Firefighters will do anything to make the emotional pain go away and protect against self harm. Exiles are rejected, weak, unloved, and abandoned children.  Keeping exiles hidden prevents intimacy or joy.  The critic criticizes others; they want to hurt others first so that the other doesn’t dare to hurt them.  The critic is protecting the self from hurt and humiliation.  They are perfectly put together by a scathing inner critic.  

In conclusion, I recognize myself in a lot of these passages.  “The Body Keeps the Score” reminds me a lot of the psychology class that I took as an undergrad in that what it stated should be obvious. I just needed someone to point it out to me.  

Australia

         It all began with the QR code.  We checked into American Airlines for our trip to Australia and the lady at the counter said that we needed a visa before she could let us on board.  This has happened before so we knew that it was a simple and easy process.  I down loaded the app, applied for a visa, and almost immediately received a registration number but the lady insisted that Australia would email a QR code to me and that in order to get on the plane, she needed to scan that code.  We waited for over two hours and the code was not sent to us.  The plane took off without us and we went home.

        Tracey immediately called Norwegian when we arrived home and they said that we could meet the ship in Melbourne.  We would miss the first couple of days on the cruise but could still enjoy some of our vacation.  I booked a flight with Delta, avoiding American Airlines with the thought that they had given us some bad information.  Sure enough, the attendant from Delta barely even looked at our registration number and we were allowed on the flight.  When we arrived at the pier in Melbourne I found myself looking wide-eyed over the horizon, searching for our ship, as I had visions of strawberry daiquiris dancing in my head.  Only there was no ship.  The security guard at the pier said that Norwegian had cancelled the port in Melbourne due to inclement weather.  We called for an Uber and went back to the airport.

         So there we are, stuck at an empty pier with no phone service and no internet.  However, we had a Christmas angel on this trip.  Tom was an eighteen year old waiter who worked at a restaurant on the pier. He allowed us access to his hotspot and then generously handed over his phone for us to use.  Without that phone we literally had no way of getting an Uber or contacting Norwegian to ask them to buy us tickets for our flight home.  We were on Tom’s phone for at least two hours trying to figure out what our next move should be.  I assured him that, as we were using an 800 number, there would be no charge for our call to his phone, and then I slipped him a twenty dollar bill for helping out two strangers who were clearly in dire straights. 

        Our second Christmas angel was Peter, who manages the emergency phone calls for Norwegian.  The two hours that we spent on Tom’s phone was spent to ask Peter how we could get out of the mess that we were in.  He said that the ship had been diverted to Wellington and there were no flights available to meet our ship because it was only in that port for one day.  If we had only known that then we could have as easily flown from Louisville into Wellington as we did to Melbourne.  Peter promised to follow up with our case in the new year and told us to make detailed notes and to keep all of our receipts for when we filed a claim.  All that we were asking for was a reimbursement for the part of the cruise that we missed because Norwegian didn’t inform us of the change in the route.  Peter said that it was likely that we would get a refund and he booked us on a flight back to Louisville.

        Another Christmas angel was Natalena, the Qantas attendant at the Melbourne airport who arranged our seats back to the U.S..  She took our case seriously, labeling it as an emergency, and ignored the long line of people behind us.  “Don’t worry about the line,” Natalena said.  “We take one customer at a time.”  She gave us the best seats available, kept our layovers to a minimum, and made sure that our account was labeled “special needs” because Tracey is blind.  Tom, Peter, and Natalena were just three of the many angels on this trip who showed us small acts of kindness because we were clearly a couple in distress.    

        Actually, if it weren’t for missing the ship, we had a pretty good trip.  We saved $2,000 per ticket on our flight to Melbourne by having a day’s worth of layovers in Atlanta and Los Angeles.  Also, I thought that it would be better if we were in transit rather than sitting around the condo and feeling sorry for ourselves while waiting two days for the ship to arrive in Melbourne.  While in Atlanta we visited the Martin Luther King National Historic Park which features his grave and a large reflection pool.  Tracey was able to feel the wheel of the wagon which carried MLK’s coffin and the bullet hole in the pew where his mother was shot and killed.  While in L.A., we took a tour of the homes of the stars, like Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney, and the Santa Monica pier.  

        A trip like this is enough to tear apart even the strongest of couples so I am proud of the fact that Tracey and I didn’t turn on each other.  There was no permanent damage to our marriage.  The only thing that we really lost is time as we expect for Norwegian to refund at least part of our money for sending us to a port where the ship didn’t dock.  Also, we have several more trips planned through Norwegian so, while we are disappointed, it wasn’t a trip of a lifetime like it would be for a lot of couples.

NYC and Boston

 .Wednesday, November 26: “Boston”

        I like doing the short, intense trips by myself because I like to cram as much as possible into one long weekend.  My flight arrived in Boston at noon and I was at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum by 1:15.  Unfortunately, the staff had posted a sign stating that the museum was closing at 2:00 because of the Thanksgiving holiday, so I had to race through the exhibits.  I took a lot of pictures and posted them on Facebook to make it look like my trip to the library was a lot more fun than it actually was but, really, the Kennedy Museum was a big disappointment.  They had a mock up of the Oval Office, for example, but it was made up of reproductions.  When I asked a member of the staff what I should see before I left he pointed to a coconut that JFK had written on so that a native in the Pacific could carry it to civilization to ask for help after his ship was sunk.  You hate to compare but main attraction at the Reagan Museum was the real Air Force 1 while the Kennedy Museum had a coconut.

        You can sit around and curse the gods when things don’t go your way or you can make the most of the time that has been given to you.  I checked into the hotel early to drop off my bag and then took a long walk around the Boston Common because the weather was so nice.  It was actually 60 degrees in Boston in November so I took advantage of the weather.  The glass is half full.  

Thursday, November 27: “Ground Zero and Freedom Tower”

        I left my hotel at 5:30 am to ride the 6:00 train to New York.  It was Thanksgiving and I find the train to be so relaxing.  The bad news was that Google maps took me to a dead end at the Boston station.  The entrance to Amtrak was three stories up; meanwhile I was cornered on three sides and if someone wanted to rob me at this dead end street then I could not have run away.  “What am I doing?” I thought to myself.  “I’ve got money!”  The criminals, or murderers, wouldn’t realize what a catch they had because I always dress down when I take these backpack trips and look like a bum.

        After three hours on Amtrak I arrived at Penn Station.  My intent was to watch the Macy’s Parade for awhile and then walk to the Freedom Tower but when I emerged from the station I was overwhelmed by what I saw.  There were unruly crowds who didn’t like being forced to stand behind the barricades and the police were yelling at them to stand back.  I could see the floats and balloons in the distance, and the staging area for the marching band was right in front of me, but I decided not to stick around.  It was freezing cold and the wind whipped between the buildings.  Also, there were emergency vehicles and helicopters everywhere.  It wasn’t like you would see on television with lots of happy people enjoying the moment.  It was a zoo and I was fine with leaving early.

        I walked three miles to the Oculus Transportation hub where I met my tour of the One World Trade Center.  Since I had left the parade early I had plenty of time to explore the Oculus, which houses twelve subway lines and seventy retail stores.  I had never even heard of the Oculus before but it is a marvel of engineering.  After my tour I went to the One World Observation deck, which is located at the top of the One World Trade Center, or the Freedom Tower and has a 360 degree view of New York City. 

Friday, November 28: “The Met”

        I left the hotel before dawn so that I could take pictures of Rockefeller Plaza while the lights were still on.  Passing the spot where the crowd was lined up to be on camera where the “Today Show” is shot, I walked through Central Park to get to The Met for a tour of the art work.  In what was a nice moment, I sat and watched the dogs playing in the park.  They are allowed to be off the leash before 9:00 and it was fun to watch them playing catch with their owners and being scrappy with the other dogs.

        Arriving at The Met an hour before it opened, I wasn’t feeling well but thought that if I could just sit down, in the sun and out of the wind, then I could power through the morning.  I was wrong.  My stomach was upset and I could feel the blood leaving my face and I felt like I was going to pass out.  And then I threw up on the stairs at the entrance to The Met.  After that I started to feel better, especially after I sat inside for an hour after the museum opened and warmed up.  The Met offers free tours so I attended the “Arms and Armor” tour and another one on “The Art of China.”

        I walked back to the hotel via Fifth Avenue and that alone was quite an experience.  It seems everyone was shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend so the crowd was packed like sardines on Fifth Avenue, the difference being was that the crowd was moving.  There were a lot of small moments that made a big impression on me, like the man who picked up his dog and carried it on his shoulders because the dog had become overwhelmed by the crowd.  So there I am, walking face to face with a dog in Manhattan.  Then there was a woman turned around with excitement and fun filling her eyes, until she realized that I was behind her and not her partner.  Suddenly the smile was gone and her look turned hostile.  An old woman came barreling out of Saks and walked right into me.  She rolled to one side, never looked up from her iPhone and never bothered to apologize.  It was like that for almost the whole length of Fifth Avenue but I also noticed that the streets were filled with Blacks and Whites and Asians and Muslims and Hindus. Where else but New York City could such a disparate group of people live and work in the same community.   

Saturday, November 29: “The Gilded Age Mansions”

        Once again, I left the hotel before dawn so that I could take pictures  of Times Square while the lights were still on.  This was my last day in Manhattan so I didn’t want to waste time in a restaurant but instead bought a box of candy and a Pepsi and started to walk.  I walked a total of 12 miles.  This is not the trip for everyone but I enjoyed myself immensely.

        The High Line is an urban hiking trail that is situated on an old, elevated railroad track.  I learned about it from my cab driver and decided that I had to see it before I left.  It was wonderful because the trail includes tall pampas and switchgrass, as well as shrubs and trees.  Blended in with the landscaping was artwork and spectacular views of the city.  I had to remind myself that I was in lower Manhattan.

        My final activity on this trip was a tour of the Gilded Age mansions.  It was fine for what it was but the guide kept name dropping to the point I couldn’t keep the stories straight between the Rockefellers, Fricks, Carnegies, Belmonts, Dukes, and the Astors.  We saw a lot of mansions, but only on the outside, so I didn’t get a lot out of the tour.

Sunday, November 30: “The Flights Home”

        I knew that this was going to be a tough travel day because it had already been announced that this day was going to be the busiest day in the history of the airlines.  The dark forebodings continued as I received an email the night before my flights that Chicago had a snow weather warning.  So I arrived at the airport early as I wanted to be extra cautious.  Also, I was worn out physically because I walked twelve miles yesterday, which I did on purpose knowing that I would be doing a lot of sitting today and I needed a well of patience.  

        My plane was supposed to take off at 10:00 am but sat on the tarmac for at least an hour and a half waiting for an “all clear” from Chicago.  As was predicted, we were snowed out of the Windy City.  Our pilot said that our flight could be delayed by 20 minutes, or two hours, or the flight might be cancelled.  Then the pilot told us that we were going back to the gate to avoid the three hour rule, which meant that the airline could not keep us waiting on the plane for more that three hours.  Just as he was turning the plane around, Chicago cleared us for take off.

        My connecting flight to Louisville at 2:50.   We landed a little after 2:00 and I thought my chances of making my flight were pretty good but then the taxi to the gate took a half hour and I saw my chances of making my flight dwindle.  I arrived at connecting gate at 2:50 according to my watch  but then I realized that we were on central time, so I had a full hour.  As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about as my flight was delayed three separate times for a half hour each.  At least I was able to get home; I would have bet big money that I would be spending the night in Chicago.

“Conclusion”

        Travel makes me happy.  It was fun just to walk in the sun on Fifth Avenue with the crowd and the traffic to distract me.  I like the syncopated rhythm of all of the people and vehicles going about their daily business.  This is why I could never vacation on a beach: I draw my energy from being in a crowd.  By the end of this short but intense trip, I felt satiated.  Travel also reminds me of how good I have it.  I could  never live in Boston or New York because they are too crowded, there is too much noise and too much traffic.  I am happy in my little condo in Louisville.  

        All of the lessons that I learned from travel bore fruit on this trip.  For example, always arrive early. I sprinted from the airport to the Kennedy Museum only to find that it was closing early.  If I hadn’t arrived early then I would have missed it entirely.  Another lesson is to be flexible.  Once I realized that I would be standing with an unruly crowd in freezing weather for the Macy’s Parade, I dumped that activity and moved on.  Finally, I have learned to enjoy the small moments, like watching the dogs play in Central Park or walking the trail on the High Line.