I’ve taken the flight from Garden City to Dallas a dozen times by now.  You need to get there early, because the same gal who checks you in also helps with security and may even help fuel the plane.  It’s always one of those little pencil jets that has me hit my head when I enter it.

It’s also a jet filled with local folks, usually.  They are noisy jets, and once, when the lady across the aisle shouted, “So which religion are you?”, all the folks leaned in to hear what I had to say on the matter.  I’m suspicious the pilot had to put in a fair bit of counter roll measure on his controls during that conversation.

I didn’t have a lot of expectations on that first leg of the trip, from Garden City to Dallas, but I was pleasantly surprised when we flew smack over and a little to the west of our place.  I was finally able to settle the question that had nagged at me for years, had we gotten our corrals laid out square to the road and square to east and west?  They looked nice from where I sat.  And as nearly as I could tell, they were square with the world.  Not that it really matters to you, I suspicion.  The only other thing remarkable about that ride was all the ups and downs.  I have never been in a flight where it seemed we had so many hills and valleys to go through.  It irritated me, because I like to try to predict what the pilot’s next move will be whenever I think I know what it is.  Nothing doing on this jag.  And even after we got done with all the ups and downs, there was still a circling exercise we had to go through on and anon over Dallas.  I began to wonder if we had a student pilot on board and he/she was working in some extra hours for credit.

I need to be clear on a point.  The day we left Kansas was a very cold, blustery day.  That’s a description of the weather, although it could have been applicable to the friendship my wife and I had for a few moments, once, before we ever left our house, and once in Atlanta.

You would think that on a trip the size of which we thought to undertake, we, make that I, would have worked out as many details as far ahead of time as possible.  But I seemed to have missed quite a number of details, thus the frosty atmosphere. 

One was an exact 2 x 2-inch photo, besides the one on my passport, that the country of India required.  A quick search of the Playstore showed numerous apps that offered such services.  But every app I downloaded was either bugged or didn’t care to deliver the goods on such short notice.  I became more and more ticked off, and my good, sweet wife became more and more, ahem, chilly.

I felt somewhat vindicated, though, when I had to go back home, twice in fact, to find things that my lovely womenfolk had forgotten to bring along, although going back home did in fact run us a bit close on time in Garden City.

But we made it on time, into the plane, and it was there that my good wife said, “Well, now that we made it this far, we can sit back and relax.  We have a whole evening and night in Atlanta; from here on we’re just along for the ride.”

I’m pretty sure that is what she said. 

Except when we landed in Atlanta, the airport was chaos.  They were remodeling, and we looked in vain for our shuttle car that was to take us to the motel we had booked. 

I reflected that it wasn’t such a big deal, we were just along for the ride, and if we missed this shuttle bus, the next one would be by in 30 minutes. 

It seemed the nice warm Georgia air chilled just a wee bit when I said that.

My wife spotted the shuttle, just as it was leaving, and I told myself I had been right that another 30 minutes would be okay.  But she went running after it, even shouting at it. 

I’m quite sure the driver didn’t hear but he must have spotted my woman on her mission and, unlike me, knew when to stop, and we had our ride.

I don’t mind McDonalds.  Some folks do.  However, that McDonalds on the corner, a block or two from our hotel, didn’t rate the highest.  It was definitely nestled in the ‘hood, and I had to keep my toes curled up tight when I walked around in there, the floor was so slick.  I expected us all to be sick by midnight from the stuff we ate there, but we actually made the night okay.