The Toxic Tour - Leg 1: Bottle Bomber

(oooh; scary!)

We just got back from an 11-day tour of the East Coast.  You want to know aaaaalllllllllll about it, don't you?  Because it involved three days of planes, 5 different sleeping spots, and concluded with a four-day camp-out amongst 40 close friends I'd never met before.

I'd give you the short version . . . but -- let's face it -- I'm too self-involved to even consider that you wouldn't want to spend the next several weeks catching up on every single detail of my life.   As such, for your reading pleasure, may I present the first post in a multi-post series regarding our trip back east?

Our first destination was to be central Virginia, where my sister lives.  However, I won't even consider that part of the trip to be the First Leg; oh no!  When one is traveling with a small child, just riding the airplane is a major trip in itself; so our full-day journey from the West Coast to the East Coast shall be Leg One.



I should start by pointing out how very put-together I was.  I had ordered up some of those vacuum travel bags so the four of us could smush 11 days-worth of supplies into one carry-on each.

a week's worth of clothing in one convenient package!

I had researched the possibility of sending our camping supplies on ahead via UPS, but discovered (much to my dismay) that it would be cheaper just to pay Delta the stupid $25 checked-bag fee than send a box ahead of time (for $110).  I made pumpkin bread to take for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch; bought those little single-serve powdered juice packets to flavor the water we'd put in our water bottles once we'd made it through security, and packed a slew of snacks.  I'd spent the previous month scouring thrift stores for easy-to-pack airplane toys and books and borrowed Gwen's portable dvd player, since mine only holds a charge for about 20 minutes.  (Oh, and I ordered one of Mr. C's favorite kids' shows from Netflix . . . only to have it be backordered and not arrive in time.  Sigh.)

Of course, I couldn't REALLY feel put-together, since that bag with our camping supplies was right on the cusp of being overweight.  According to our crappy bathroom scale, the bag weighed 47 pounds by the time we'd filled it with 4 sleeping bags, 3 sleeping pads, 2 full-sized pillows (the men in my family are pussies), Mr. C's 'kitty blanket', 9 cans of special-order tuna (because heaven forbid Bee be asked to eat tuna from a grocery store!!), 1 jar of homemade grape jelly (because -- at this point -- why not?), and a jug o' sunblock.  And who knows how accurate that scale is?  Not to mention the fact that we're allowed 62 inches -- length x width x height -- for our checked bag; and ours was hovering between 65-70 (depending, of course, on how smashed it got once it had been thrown down the stairs a few times).  If the bag was overweight or over size, we'd then have to pay $60 to check it.  And I sure as hell was not about to do that.

By the night before our trip, however, I was packed, snacked, had prepaid the $25 baggage fee online (because if I thought positively, it might come true!), had made a copy of Mr. C's birth certificate, written out all our flights and the phone numbers of everyone we were about to stay with (as well as everyone who was watching out various pets), and had ordered up a cab for 5:15 the following morning. I was as ready as I could be.

The next morning, I awoke before my alarm.  By the time the clock showed 4:30 a.m., I was already in the kitchen mixing up a batch of homemade play dough, which I'd suddenly decided Mr. C must have for the plane.  By 5:10, everyone was up, dressed and teeth-brushed.  The taxi arrived a few minutes early, was loaded with our four carry-ons, four "small, personal items (such as a backpack, briefcase or purse)" [of course we each had one], one huge camping bag of questionable weight and size, and Mr. C's car seat.  We hit the road at 5:17 a.m., and arrived at the airport less than 20 minutes later.  Since I'm sooo prepared, I had plenty of change for the taxi (plus the one we'd need in 11 days when we came home), as well as a tip for the curbside check-in guy who'd take The Bag Of Questionable Weight And Size off our hands.

Naturally, the curbside check-in guy -- being new -- decided he wasn't comfortable taking The Bag Of Questionable Weight and Size since it was weighing in at 54 pounds; but he DID help us lug it inside and up to the check-in counter.  Where it weighed in at 49.5 pounds.  Woo-hoo!  Of course, it did come in at 67 inches, but the Delta lady decided to let it pass.  Double Woo-hoo!  Anyway, it took several extra minutes to get that and the car seat checked, but we still had about half an hour before our flight by the time we headed to security.  Plenty of time.

The security line was short, as it usually is at our airport, so Bee and I spent the 2 minutes it took to weave through the line congratulating ourselves on timing our exodus so that we could make our plane whilst concurrently spending as little time possible at the airport with our darling hellion.  Can I get a Woo-hoo?

As we approached the x-ray machine, the nearby TSA agent spotted Mr. C's sippy cup in his backpack side pocket and reminded us that we couldn't have more than 3.5 ounces of liquid in it.  Since I am a Seasoned Airport Traveller and -- as before-mentioned -- since I Was Prepared, I'd made sure his cup was empty long before I'd packed it.  Thwarted in catching my three-year-old as a terrorist, the TSA agent apparently decided instead that I looked rather suspicious, so she randomly selected me for a palm swipe.  Which -- in case you've never had one -- is where they swipe your palms with some harsh litmus-type paper, wave the paper in front of some magic machine and promptly pronounce that you haven't been handling drugs.  Or something.  At that point, I was free to go disrobe for the metal detector.

Mr. C went through the metal detector first, although it took him about three tries to get through without touching the sides of the machine while the TSA beckoned him through from the front and I coaxed him forward from behind.  The TSA agent gave him a high-five.  (In case you were wondering, I got no such special treatment).  I was fully-dressed and getting Mr. C's backpack on him before I realized that my purse was being scrutinized in the machine.  Which was weird, since -- being Prepared -- I'd remembered to remove my Swiss Army knife from my keychain and had no other metal that I could think of in there.

Which is true; I didn't have metal: I had water.  Like, nearly a full bottle of water attached via a carabiner to my purse strap.  I'd remembered Mr. C's bottle, had reminded Bee and S.B. about theirs, but had forgotten  to check my own.

The nice TSA agent 'couldn't allow' me to just drink the water and keep going 'because his boss was watching', so he had to escort my bottle back to the end of the line as I slunk behind him, leaving Bee and S.B. and their empty water bottles smugly shaking their heads from the other side of security.  How humiliating!  The agent pointed out where the bathrooms were so I could dump the liquid, told me to take the shortcut through security, then left.  At which point I promptly ignored the bathrooms so I could get back in line, guzzling down my water as I went.

I decided to laugh about my folly, instead of feeling stressed about it.  So, as I stood in the security line for the second time in 10 minutes, I grasped onto a sense of calm.  I could hear the heavy, panicked breathing of the woman who got into line behind me, and I pitied her for getting to the airport so late and now having to worry about missing her flight.  But me?  I was a leaf on the breeze; watch me soar!

I showed my boarding pass and ID to the agent at this end of the line, sheepishly admitting that I had had water in my bottle.  Uninterested, he waved me through, but pointed me towards the longer metal detector line.  "Umm, can't I go through the shorter line?" I batted my eyelashes.  "The other guy said I could."  My charms were lost on the new agent, but he did grudgingly allow me to use the shorter line, providing I promised to place the blame on the other guy, should any of the bosses see me.  I told him I had absolutely no problem doing that, and my water bottle and I made it through security with no further issues.

I picked up the boys on the other side of security, and we all meandered to the nearest monitor to find our gate.  Our airport isn't big, so -- even though our assigned gate was at the very end of it -- it would take just a few minutes to walk there.  We began trundling off, and I checked my watch.  Our flight was scheduled to leave in 13 minutes, so we still had plenty of time.  I swung Mr. C's hand as we walked, then checked my watch again.  Uuuuuuhhh, wait a minute: the flight left in (now) 12 minutes, but -- according to the info I'd read online (since I was Prepared) -- they closed boarding ten minutes before the flight left.

And our assigned gate was at the very end of the airport.

"Hey, uh, Sweetie?" I said to Bee.  "We might want to pick it up a bit . . . "

Which is how we ended up tearing up to the gate at 6:19, just as Delta called our names, then slunk onto the completely full flight: where all the rest of the passengers were patiently waiting -- seat belts fastened, tray tables up, and seat backs in their full upright position -- for our late asses.

Had the taxi been a few minutes later . . . had I not bullied the TSA agent into letting me take the shortcut . . .

Anyway, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Mr. C on the flight.  This was only the second time he's flown; the first time being when he was less than two and therefore in the 'I'm cute but not too bright and probably won't remember this' stage.  So it was really funny to brightly chirp to Mr. C about how the plane was going to get very loud! and go very fast! and wouldn't that be very fun! and have him actually believe me and clutch my hand with a ninja death-grip during take-off but smile the whole time.

It took three flights to get us across the country.  But at least that meant we were usually only stuck on the airplane for about an hour.  By the time we'd reached our cruising altitude, picked our drinks, and visited the bathroom once, it was time to prepare for landing.  So I hardly had to use any of the toys I'd packed for Mr. C.  And he did really, really well.

Things went swimmingly until our last flight.  Which was delayed by 2 hours.  Bee and I spent those two hours frantically taking turns letting Mr. C ride the Detroit airport's moving walkways over and over and visiting the bathrooms several times.  (For some reason, Mr. C is as fascinated with public restrooms as I used to be [although I don't recall having a fondness for them at quite so young an age {Go figure}.].)

We made it to the Richmond airport at 6:30, where my sister met us with a welcoming smile and a cooler with snacks and cold water.  What a hostess!  The car seat and The Bag Of Questionable Weight And Size  made it through with no problems, though the latter had been searched by TSA (probably due to that very suspicious-looking jar of jelly).  We loaded into my sister's car, then set off for the hour drive to her house.

Next post: Leg 2, or You're Too Nice To Be Related To Me.