adventure!

Sometimes adventure finds you quite unexpectedly! As I get older, spontaneity has seemed to decline. I remember hopping in the car in my 20's, with kids, and just going for a drive! What fun we always had, either finding a park or a fun little store to explore. As the kids got older, school and life intruded, and those little adventures ceased.
Enter my daughter, traveling space available on military flights with her two small children. WOW, I admire that! Such bravery! Such intrepid-ness! Such ADVENTURE! She flew from Germany, with two car seats, a double stroller, two small children (aged 2.5 and 1) one suitcase. Amazing!
And best of all, she was doing all this to come see meeeeeeee! I miss my girl and her kids. Soon, they'll be back in the US and we can visit more often.
So, my dear daughter, flying space available with her two children, included us in her traveling adventure! There are rules to space available travel, and open to interpretation. Well, we interpreted them incorrectly. @@ We both thought, after reading several things, that as long as her ultimate destination was overseas that she would be able to fly out of Scott AFB (midwest) to the east coast and catch an overseas flight. Not so! So, after driving her there, we were kinda stuck on what to do. I'd checked out flight prices one-way to the DC area, but that was quite expensive and only part of the trip. So......
I offered to take her. To Dover, Delaware. 13 hours of driving from where we were. I called my dad to see if he could feed the cats, and Andrew's guitar teacher to cancel his lesson, anda friend of mine in DC to see if we could stay with her and off we went.
As an aside, the AF Sgt. manning the Space available counter was really pretty nice. He knew we were distressed, and when I told him what I had read that gave me the impression she could fly out of there he went right then to try and find it. It wasn't going to change his mind about letting her fly, but at least he was trying to understand. And he offered to print out driving directions to Dover for us. He also said it would probably be cheaper for her to fly, and I said I'd checked out that option, and we'd previously looked into a one-way rental for another situation and it was even more expensive than flying or driving. I appreciated him trying to help.
So, we get some money, fill up the car and buy a couple of toothbrushes and some other necessities and hop on the road.
After a couple of hours, I called Marsha. After telling me I'm nuts she said...Hey, I think you'll pass right by my hood! She was right! It was a total treat to meet her and Em at Cracker Barrel for dinner. We had a great time! Sadly, she pointed out that we still had around 8 hrs to go, so we got back on the road.
One of the drawbacks to spontaneity in traveling, is you don't exactly prepare. I didn't have a computer (or a change of clothes) or anything..so I had to stop and buy an atlas. I have a GPS-in the car we weren't driving. We took turns driving the next 8 or so hours and arrived in DC around 6:30 am. We visited with our friends for a little while and dropped into bed. I slept for about 3 hrs and woke up feeling pretty darn good! We showered and dressed and felt relatively human. Fortunately, Andrew had slept a lot in the car, so he could play with the kids and we could sleep. Without him, I don't know what we would have done!
We loaded up and left my friends around 6 pm. The report time for the flight was 10 pm, and it was estimated to take about 2.5 hrs to get to Dover. We encountered a little bit of traffic, but got to Dover and found the AFB around 9 pm. Katie went in to see if she could sign in, and they told her then-the flight is full. But, there was another leaving in the morning and she could try for that. I told her I really hated to leave her, but we HAD to head home on Thursday. So, we checked her into a hotel and said our good-byes; Andrew and I drove back to my friends in DC.
:-(
The next morning, Andrew and I got on the road after rush hour settled down. My friend told us that it was supposed to snow in Ohio and Pennsylvania that evening, but since we weren't going north I didn't really worry about that. I called Marsha, and told her that we were going to try and make it in one day, but Andrew talked me out of it. After we got out of West Virginia and into Kentucky, it started to snow! I told Andrew he must have ESP or something. Marsha talked us to her house and we went to WALMART right away to get Andrew something to sleep in. (yes, we're rednecks. Gotta check out all them wal-marts!) Then we picked up some dinner and hung out at Marsha's for the evening. I hadda great time! We just sat and talked for awhile, then I crashed in bed. (a very comfy bed!) I planned on leavin early, but of course, didn't. Sat and talked some more, hoping to get to see Marsha's new couch. We finally got on the road, and got home around 7 pm. :-) (and her couch got there 5 minutes after we left. OF COURSE!)
Part of the fun of traveling is playing games in the car. Andrew and I had a good time with word games and various silliness. He was my designated texter, as well, and would answer my text messages for me. My sis and I planned our Thanksgiving dinner via text! lol One of the things I always enjoyed when my kids were little and we had our little driving adventures was the discovery of new places. We saw a lot of places we thought would be fun on our trip home, and decided that we had to go back to DC in the spring; take our time getting there and see some of the fun things on the way. It's nice to have children who enjoy traveling and don't mind a little craziness in their lives!