I Love Travel
My wife and I took off for Raleigh-Durham with our twin 14 year olds last week. We left son #1 at home with deep trepidation, based on memories of my week as a teenager at home without the parents. Our daughter had a basketball tournament in NC this past weekend. That’s right. We flew across country for an eighth grade basketball tournament. Things have changed since I rode the pine for my high school JV basketball team. We thought we were the cat’s pajamas when we took a bus across the county line for a game.
The trip there was an adventure. Our developmentally disabled son can present challenges. He doesn’t usually take no for an answer. It’s like traveling with a 5’4”, 125 pound 1 year old. But he only managed to slap three or four strangers. Our travel agent, my wife, routed us through Chicago. That was the first mistake. They only had two runways open due to the snow so our RDU flight, as well as all subsequent flights there, got canceled. My wife has saved our bacon in the past (see 8/10/06 post) so she got on the horn and started making calls. She does that a lot but this time she had a purpose, which was to get the hell out of Chicago. The airline customer service rep asked where she wanted to go. “Whaddaya got?” she replied. We tried Charlotte, Greensboro, Greenville, even Green Hornet. No luck. So we got a 10pm flight to DC. We were supposed to get out of there around 2:30 so that extended the day a tad. On the DC leg of the trip our son had a bit of an accident. Have you ever tried to change a diaper on somebody close to your size in an airplane bathroom? After we got through that, we doubled up on the $5 drinks. As I sipped my Canadian Club, a verse from one of my favorite Stones tunes, “Sweet Virginia”, ran through my head. “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes”.
Events continued to conspire against us after we arrived in DC. When we hopped in the cab, we told him to take us to the Staybridge, which our kind sister-in-law had reserved for us on the fly. Our driver was very polite and said, “Sure, how do you get there?” It was apparent that he had not been in the country for very long. All my wife knew was that the place was within four miles. So he pulled over and called the Staybridge. He and the night clerk had a nice chat but it seems they were in disagreement on the last required turn. He was of the mind that it was a left. She said right. They discussed it at length. Fortunately we got there pretty quickly, without baggage of course. We picked up a toothbrush and toothpaste at the hotel inconvenience store and trekked to our room in the rain. We did have the foresight to bring along another pop from the airplane in case there wasn’t a mini-bar in our room, which there wasn’t. We got a few hours sleep and hopped on a plane to RDU the next morning.
Our luggage didn’t make it the same day we did, which led to several phone calls to United. After holding for about 15 minutes, I reached one of their representatives. I think it was our cab driver’s daughter. She said “We have good news for you Mr. DJ. Your bags are safe. They are right here, in our call center”. My daughter was staying at a hotel with the rest of the team and called us as many times as we called United re luggage status. I summoned my best accent, apologized profusely, and said we were doing everything possible to locate it. Since it did not arrive in time for her first game, she got a new pair of expensive sneakers, which will hopefully be courtesy of the airline.
As far as the games, her team went three out of four and placed fifth in her bracket. She had the opportunity to play on the court at the Dean Smith Center at UNC as well as the NC State gym. In addition, she got a tour of the Duke campus, featuring a picture with Dad on the Coach K court. My hope is that this will be a broadening experience for her, teaching her the value of perseverance and teamwork. More importantly, I expect a return on my investment via a college hoops scholarship. If she lets me down, she’ll have a choice of many of the fine junior colleges in our area.
While she was with the team, the rest of us were at the home of one of my best friends. As luck would have it, we were there during the filming of their reality show, “Dr. Joe’s Family”. We hung out with six of their seven kids, a couple dogs, two current and one erstwhile babysitter, and a boyfriend, who doubles as the resident herpetologist. Throw into the mix a visiting brother-in-law and his two daughters and you get an erratic, southern fried version of Full House. There’s always a whirl of activity and occasionally some lively discussion, wherein they agree to disagree.
The adults escaped for a meal out at one of Chapel Hill’s finest dining establishments Thursday evening. The rest of the time we ate in. NC is rightly known for its excellent BBQ, which we indulged in our last night there. Friday night we had some NC pizza. They’re rightfully not known for that. Dr. Joe and his bride kicked us to the curb Monday morning and, gratefully, we had a very uneventful trip home.
The trip there was an adventure. Our developmentally disabled son can present challenges. He doesn’t usually take no for an answer. It’s like traveling with a 5’4”, 125 pound 1 year old. But he only managed to slap three or four strangers. Our travel agent, my wife, routed us through Chicago. That was the first mistake. They only had two runways open due to the snow so our RDU flight, as well as all subsequent flights there, got canceled. My wife has saved our bacon in the past (see 8/10/06 post) so she got on the horn and started making calls. She does that a lot but this time she had a purpose, which was to get the hell out of Chicago. The airline customer service rep asked where she wanted to go. “Whaddaya got?” she replied. We tried Charlotte, Greensboro, Greenville, even Green Hornet. No luck. So we got a 10pm flight to DC. We were supposed to get out of there around 2:30 so that extended the day a tad. On the DC leg of the trip our son had a bit of an accident. Have you ever tried to change a diaper on somebody close to your size in an airplane bathroom? After we got through that, we doubled up on the $5 drinks. As I sipped my Canadian Club, a verse from one of my favorite Stones tunes, “Sweet Virginia”, ran through my head. “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes”.
Events continued to conspire against us after we arrived in DC. When we hopped in the cab, we told him to take us to the Staybridge, which our kind sister-in-law had reserved for us on the fly. Our driver was very polite and said, “Sure, how do you get there?” It was apparent that he had not been in the country for very long. All my wife knew was that the place was within four miles. So he pulled over and called the Staybridge. He and the night clerk had a nice chat but it seems they were in disagreement on the last required turn. He was of the mind that it was a left. She said right. They discussed it at length. Fortunately we got there pretty quickly, without baggage of course. We picked up a toothbrush and toothpaste at the hotel inconvenience store and trekked to our room in the rain. We did have the foresight to bring along another pop from the airplane in case there wasn’t a mini-bar in our room, which there wasn’t. We got a few hours sleep and hopped on a plane to RDU the next morning.
Our luggage didn’t make it the same day we did, which led to several phone calls to United. After holding for about 15 minutes, I reached one of their representatives. I think it was our cab driver’s daughter. She said “We have good news for you Mr. DJ. Your bags are safe. They are right here, in our call center”. My daughter was staying at a hotel with the rest of the team and called us as many times as we called United re luggage status. I summoned my best accent, apologized profusely, and said we were doing everything possible to locate it. Since it did not arrive in time for her first game, she got a new pair of expensive sneakers, which will hopefully be courtesy of the airline.
As far as the games, her team went three out of four and placed fifth in her bracket. She had the opportunity to play on the court at the Dean Smith Center at UNC as well as the NC State gym. In addition, she got a tour of the Duke campus, featuring a picture with Dad on the Coach K court. My hope is that this will be a broadening experience for her, teaching her the value of perseverance and teamwork. More importantly, I expect a return on my investment via a college hoops scholarship. If she lets me down, she’ll have a choice of many of the fine junior colleges in our area.
While she was with the team, the rest of us were at the home of one of my best friends. As luck would have it, we were there during the filming of their reality show, “Dr. Joe’s Family”. We hung out with six of their seven kids, a couple dogs, two current and one erstwhile babysitter, and a boyfriend, who doubles as the resident herpetologist. Throw into the mix a visiting brother-in-law and his two daughters and you get an erratic, southern fried version of Full House. There’s always a whirl of activity and occasionally some lively discussion, wherein they agree to disagree.
The adults escaped for a meal out at one of Chapel Hill’s finest dining establishments Thursday evening. The rest of the time we ate in. NC is rightly known for its excellent BBQ, which we indulged in our last night there. Friday night we had some NC pizza. They’re rightfully not known for that. Dr. Joe and his bride kicked us to the curb Monday morning and, gratefully, we had a very uneventful trip home.
posted by DJ @ 8:34 PM
1 Comments:
At 4/21/2007 9:11 AM,
Anonymous said…
That's all very interesting, but I want to know what your house looked like when you got home.
AMS
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