airplanes and rental cars.

i wasn’t sure whether i would write about my trip to pennsylvania to visit ZSR (the family that i nannied for in cs) or not, but after my ridiculous adventure starting at the dc airport, it would be a shame not to share.

i started an early morning with easy flights from harlingen to houston and houston to dc. with an hour layover in dc, i had no problem finding my gate, getting a snack and people watching. it was announced that my flight to state college, penn was delayed about 40 minutes so i struck up conversation with the nicest older lady. just some small talk because we figured we had about 30 minutes to talk before we were on our way. FALSE. the flight was suddenly cancelled and we were directed to the longest airport customer service line ever. when we got to the line, my new friend looked at me and asked "peach?" she pulled two peaches out of her bag and we proceeded to stand and snack. told ya she was one of the nice ones.

long story not as long… talked to a man in a white hat, he overheard me talking on the phone about going to state college and asked if myself and my peach friend would like to share a car with him if we aren't able to get a new flight. we thought that would be a decent idea. A couple hours later, i made it to the front of the line with a nearly dead phone, just wanting to get out of the airport ( i had been traveling since 7am that morning, it was now 7pm.) The next flight wouldn't leave until the next day at noon, with no hotel voucher or meals or refunds or anything. Sleeping on a hard airport floor wasn't exactly appetizing, so the man in the white hat, the peach lady and two others in line behind us formed a little group and decided to rent a car (after my mother asked if they were sketchy..)

there were five of us. white hat harold, talkative steve, peach eating barbara, chinese fiona, and myself. we found a shuttle to a car place, rented a groovy blue mini van and finally got on the road at 8:30pm. keep in mind that it was POURING down rain and the drive from dc to state college was almost 4 hours.

   harold, the leader and driver, was flying in from california. he was visiting his daughter in san fran. he has a knack for fresh water flyfishing, walks a group of dogs at "the paws" on saturdays and just had shoulder surgery.

   steve is a retired penn state accounting professor who flew in from austin. i’m thinking he was about 70 and was definitely the talker of the bunch. he repeatedly told stories about the navy, his firefighting days, how he felt when the first calculator came out for 700 dollars, and how he didn't get a lick of sleep from all the firetrucks going by putting out fires the night before.

   barbara was flying in from durango, colorado and aside from the peach, pulled out about 6 other snack foods to share with the road trippers. she was extremely hard of hearing, but with a little patience, an enjoyable person to talk to.

   fiona,  the timid penn state student, was flying in from boston, mass. she was very quiet but giggled a few times here and there. she is a sophomore student with an undeclared major. but, the poor little one had an accounting test the next morning! so glad that those testing days are (basically) over.

we did a few (very illegal) u-turns and several stops for the older bladders, but we finally made it to state college in the wee hours of the morning. after heartfelt hugs and some laughs and well wishes, we said our goodbyes and returned to our own separate lives, all knowing that this will be one of the most memorable and random and unexpected roadtrips of our lives.

whew!

until next time.

ash.