Just plane frustrating

I am relieved that my family and I have, for the most part, safely returned in one piece from our incredible journey to Washington State where we visited my best friend and her family. I would say we all have “completely” safely returned if I weren’t in the hospital right now suffering from the effects of an unknown arachnid or other tiny critter bite to my arm, but there will be more on that in the near future.

For now, let me attempt to take you all on a journey to discover why my husband, my children and I cannot seem to comfortably make it to an airport on time.

Tuesday, June 25^th was our departure day and the flight was set to leave at 1:55 pm. Never pick a flight that late because it gives you a false sense of security that you can do things like cook breakfast, sit around and drink coffee, or play Candy Crush Saga before you wake up the kids who stayed up way too late the night before.

Before we knew it, the time was closer to 10:30 than 9:30 and we weren’t exactly where we thought we’d be at that point in the day. Things became a bit hectic real fast. Weren’t we already supposed to be driving?

Figurative fires were lit beneath undeserving bottoms and there may have been a little whining over having to get moving so soon after waking up which was met with apathy and unsympathetic remarks.

It was 11:35 when we all piled in the truck to make our way to the reduced fare parking five minutes from the Orlando International with vans running to the airport every 15 minutes. The map application on our phones reported that we’d reach our destination at 1:25 pm.

This was not looking good at all.

I told my husband to floor it in the safest manner possible. My daughter was delighted.

Every time a red light was missed by catching a green, we cheered. Every pack of cars we passed, my heart skipped a beat. I saw us gaining time each MPH he went over the speed limit, but we weren’t gaining enough.

I frantically called the parking company and told them our dilemma once we hit I-4 at 12:50. They said they would meet us directly at the airport and take our truck to their parking for us. I fell in love. I didn’t care who they were or if they sold the truck later, we may actually catch that flight.

We got out at the Air Tran drop-off. I checked our bags curbside while my husband gave a big tip to the parking guys. Air Tran said our bags might make it, but we needed to get going fast.

Security was fairly quick, thank goodness, and we were almost running to the gate. They were calling for final boarding. When they saw us, the boarding agent said, “You must be the Hutchins family.” Guilty!

I wish I could say the way home was better and I really thought it would be. We had an hour and a half when we were dropped off at Sea-Tac Airport on July 5th, but their lines were out-of-this-world! I could not believe how long the wait was for everything. When my daughter had to take an extended stay in the bathroom, I almost lost my mind!

Like before, final boarding was being called when we got to the plane. “You must be the Hutchins family.”

Yes! Guilty again!