Up, Up, and Away

This is going to me my last or one of my last updates in a while. I’m writing this in the plane from Charlotte to Houston after narrowly avoiding (or at least minimizing) some serious concerns. It started last night when I had a massive list to complete (complete academic registration, check health insurance, sort out birthday gifts, book a flight, finalize packing, etc). As I was double checking the finances, I discovered that the credit card was missing. I tore apart my bags and searched them to no avail. It was about 11:40 and I debated for a solid 5 minutes whether or not to call the “travel phone” which is always with someone 24 hours a day. Ultimately I decided it was better they know sooner than later and I ended up calling much to the dismay of a particularly sleepy office staff. She assured me that everything would be fine and made me feel a bit better though still overall I felt awful for calling. Not only did I disturb her so late at night, but I have already started the trip on a shaky foot. In retrospect, I could have called from Houston but I was running on about 3-4 hours of sleep from the night before and trying to deal with losing a credit card so give me a break.

Anyway, I finished all that I could do last night, got a 2 hour nap, then made it to the airport on time without any problems. Within two minutes of walking through the doors however, I was informed that my flight was delayed and I wouldn’t arrive in Houston until after my flight was scheduled to leave for Belize. Luckily they had another flight to Belize leaving an hour or two later and booked me on it. All was well until we had to deal with the congestion from several delayed flights and didn’t get out until 45 minutes after the re-scheduled departure. The captain said that we would be arriving at 10:30 (thus missing my 10:20 departure) and most of the flight was spent telling myself (and fully believing) that everything would be perfectly fine even if I didn’t get to Belize for another day. It turned out that the captain had neglected to account for the change in time zone giving me another hour. I’ll now have 15 minutes to get off the plane and find my gate before boarding starts. If that’s not enough good news, I’ll be arriving in Belize right about the time another group comes in with a friend of mine so I’ll most likely be able to see them.

Here’s to a fantastic summer - setbacks, delays, problems and all. You can never eliminate every obstacle but you can decide what will be the best way around them.