Travel Adventures

The journey from Washington DC to Jerusalem was quite an adventure, fraught with natural disasters, lost items, heat waves, and seven different stops along the way. And with that cryptic opening, here's the story:

First of all, it was a miracle that I was able to leave DC when I did. My original flight was scheduled for 5:40 pm the night of the 27, putting me in Salt Lake at 12:10 am on the 28th of August. I had a flight out of Salt Lake at 6:10 am on the 29th, and I was really hoping for more than 30 hours to see my family and put my affairs in order in Salt Lake.

Unfortunately, however, Delta has a $150 flight change fee. And paying $150 to change my flight by 8 hours is against my principles.

But guys, I just want to tell you that prayer works. I had been praying for weeks that I could get an earlier flight home without paying the fee. My plan was to go and sit at the airport early Saturday morning and ask every attendant to help me out until I got an earlier flight.

And then there was a hurricane. It was scheduled to come Saturday afternoon, and most airlines cancelled all flights.

And let passengers change their flights without a change fee.

You know what that means! I got an earlier flight home without a plane change fee.

Yep. Prayer works, even if it needs to be answered with a hurricane!

My first flight of the marathon was from DC to Minneapolis. As I sat down the man next to me started talking to me. And I'm just gonna say, I totally pegged his accent as Kenyan. And when I asked him where he was from, guess what? He was from Kenya.

I also guessed that I wouldn't have a minute of quiet the whole two hour flight, even though he was at the tail-end of 25 hours of travelling. And guess what? I was right.

Somewhere, though, in the midst of telling me about Kenya and intercultural tolerance, religion came up (the fact that I'm from Utah and went to BYU usually makes an easy segue into questions about Mormons) and I told him about prophets, the Book of Mormon, and revelation.

And guess what? He was super interested in learning more about the church. I gave him a pass along card with the website, he said he'd call for a free Book of Mormon, and we exchanged emails. I'll let you guys know if anything happens.

As we parted ways, I told him, "You know, I think God wanted us to meet today. Because I wasn't supposed to be on this flight! I only changed because of the hurricane." Good thing he didn't think it was an accident either!

My time in Salt Lake (kindly extended to 35 hours instead of only 30) was a flurry of activity. Somewhere in the middle of meeting my new niece, taking family pictures for my sister, repacking my bags and buying everything I needed, and seeing my family for the last time in a year (and the first time since April) I lost my jeans. Of the three pair I had, I lost two (and I just bought them before I went to DC!). That left me with--that's right--one pair of jeans. This was perhaps the most traumatic incident of my entire journey--and I later realized that I had left them in Washington DC!

Jeans or not, I had to fly out early morning to Houston to visit my sister. The second I walked out of the airport and walked to my sister's car, I asked her, "Do you mind if we go to Maurices so I can buy some jeans?"

And guess what, guys. Miracle of miracles, there was a Maurices close to the airport and they just happened to have the very jeans I needed (they have discontinued the line of jeans I wear, which was a huge part of my stress since they are the only jeans that fit me right) on the $10 rack. They only had one pair and they just happened to be the size I needed.

Yes, I do believe in miracles.

Houston was like a dream. A 108 degree fahrenheit dream. It was so hot. SO HOT. I thought DC was hot, and there was no relief in Salt Lake because they were having a 95 degree heat wave. But seriously. I thought I was going to die in Houston.

The air conditioning in my sister's car works about as well as a fan placed in front of a hot oven, which meant hours and hours of sweating misery for the both of us. For the last few hours before she dropped me off at the airport, we decided to go to an "old town Main Street" out near the airport.

We should have known what to expect from "old town Main Street" in Houston, but I think at the very least we were hoping for some air conditioning and relief from the heat.

We heard there was a Civil War museum, so after searching for 30 minutes in the 108 degree weather, we finally found it. Picture this: a tiny trailer with the paint peeling sitting on overgrown grass next to an empty lot with trucks parked on the grass in front of it. And the steps were sagging and almost rotted through.

Kaitlyn and I weren't looking for classy, though--we were just looking for air conditioning! We staggered inside the "museum" and were met by a very orange-show-like experience: the trailer was filled with piles of keepsakes from the Confederate side of the Civil War. They had little displays of armies shooting at each other, with the smoke from the guns made of q-tips or cotton all stretched out and glued in place. And guess what? Trailers, of course, don't have central air.

It was awesome.

I was over by the Confederate flag section, holding my nephew and trying not to die in the heat, when I see Kaitlyn motioning me over. She was standing right in front of the swamp cooler, pretending to be interested in the bullet collection, but really just trying to cool off. We both stood there as long as we dared and then snuck out before the other patrons, who were talking to the docents (? those guys who were sitting inside the trailer and watching the stuff) left. We didn't want to get stuck in there talking to the owners, as nice as I'm sure they were.

All in all, it was a very memorable way to leave the States!

London was awesome, but it will get its own post. The best part about my trip to London, though, was definitely my plane seat: the window seat on the exit row at the front of the section. I had at least 4 feet of leg room for the 7 hour flight. And it was awesome. It was the first pleasant overseas flight that I've had since, well, ever.

And guess what else? Since it was British Airways, among the many options for movies and music they had Adele's album 21. The whole thing. The soundtrack to my sleep on that red-eye flight was her spectacularly soulful voice.

The point of this post is to say that I do believe in miracles, air conditioning changes lives, and I love random experiences because they make awesome stories.