Adventure | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Adventure

Defined by Wonder

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

Out of all religious celebrations, my least favorite is Easter. I’d rather not get into reasons why, though lacy short sleeved dresses on the coldest Sundays in Texas history have a minor role. (Seriously, the Texan weather gods must spend three quarters of the year siphoning away stray breezes to be released all together the moment flimsy Easter dresses emerge.) Our church here in Italy does not officially celebrate Easter, but nonetheless, I prefer to distance myself from institutions for the weekend. Campgrounds work nicely. Campgrounds in Sorrento work very nicely.

Our experience this year was different from last year’s in that we didn’t drive the entire coastline, stumble into any creepy processionals, or need the sunscreen, but the defining factor of our trip was still wonder. The wonder of waking up to Mount Vesuvius drifting above the bay on a floe of sky-blue mist… the wonder of the girls running themselves giddy beneath succulent orange trees… the wonder of following an unknown path down a cliff face to the water’s edge where cats napped on volcanic remnants and boulders presented themselves for the jumping… above all, the wonder of putting our busy life on hold while we shacked up with beauty for the weekend.

Thanks to a fitful forecast, we put our Capri plans on hold and had the kind of see-where-our-feet-take-us day we love so much. The first place our feet took us was… back inside the tent to play Curious George Uno, sneak a few chocolate eggs, and wait out a cloudburst. Admittedly, it wasn’t the worst way to spend Easter morning, but we were still glad to see the sky take its emotional issues elsewhere. After all, there were pigeons to chase! Merry-go-rounds to conquer! Strawberry gelato to dribble deliciously onto our mother’s jeans! We wound our way through the Sorrento shopping district scoping out lemons for Operation Limoncello 2010 and followed an inkling down the coast to pretend stray cats were panthers and ogle the waves, still turquoise beneath their cloud cover. Once little legs tired out, we drove down the block to Positano, so brim-full of color and bustle that we never had a chance to miss our derailed Capri trip.

The next day brought with it an impromptu detour to the excavation site of Pompeii. I’m glad I had the chance to be properly impressed by Herculaneum last year because Pompeii so thoroughly surpassed all previous experiences with ruins. I mean, there are ruins, and there are RUINS. Acres upon acres of stepping-stone streets, villas, tombs, bars, theaters, brothels, temples, shopping malls, gardens, and what my girls claimed as their own personal “beautiful castles.” It felt both heavy and oddly exhilarating to poke around a city where people lived 2,000 years ago. No denying that Vesuvius’s famous eruption was tragic, but getting to peek into an ancient culture without the distraction of progress felt like a gift—a head-warping, perspective-zapping, imagination-thrilling sort of gift to carry home on tired feet.

I know I’m not scoring points with the Spanish Inquisition here, but God is more real to me outdoors with the girls chasing butterflies or skipping over ancient crosswalks than in a meeting hall where we’re trying to make them behave like doorstops. Fresh air has a big impact on our spiritual lives, I think. Incidentally, the God we pitched our tent with—the one painting gold across the horizon and setting magpies in flight and coaxing wild poppies into the open—is the one that makes me feel religious celebrations have merit after all… though, if I’m going to be honest, I’d still take a camping trip on the Amalfi Coast, breathing in the fragrance of citrus trees and drinking up wonder, over lacy Easter dresses any day.

30Mar

Latent Swashbuckler

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As my last post made abundantly clear, courage is not something I come by easily. I assume God kept this in mind when he nudged single me toward single Dan seven years ago and then hid conspicuously behind a potted plant singing “Getting’ Jiggy Wit It” just loud enough for us to hear. At least, I fervently hope so. A girl could use a bit of divine reassurance upon realizing her husband considers mountain biking, racing through airports, and eating fist-sized octopi to be marital bonding activities.

Dan’s sense of adventure and gift for tenacity (sounds better than stubbornness, right?) have formed the perfect antidote to my sense of being a delicate flower and my gift for hanging out safely indoors for weeks on end. He brings out the latent swashbuckler in me, and I recognize this as a good thing. Usually.

A little less so two Sundays ago. It was the first full day of our settimana bianca—a week in the mountains nearly as important to Italian culture as a week at the beach in August (and involving nearly as much sunbathing). Some dear friends were chaperoning the girls’ naps, so Dan and I grabbed our snowboards and headed up the lift… straight into a cloudbank. Notably, we had forgotten a map.

“No problem,” said my undaunted husband. “We’ll just had straight across until we find an obvious trail.”

“Straight across the mountain?” squeaked his rather daunted wife. “Without a map? Inside a cloud that fancies itself opaque?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Because I am a gutless invertebrate, I didn’t say.

Twenty minutes later found me clinging to the snowy mountainside with the tips of my boots while trying to keep a grip on my board. Above and below me were sheer nothingness—emphasis on the sheer. In fact, the only things I could see were the perpendicular slope directly beneath my feet and Dan’s vague outline ahead. The rest of my vision had been smothered in whiteout. I hadn’t heard anything for a quarter of an hour besides my own footsteps and that landlocked fish flopping around inside my chest, and panic was turning my tired muscles to jelly. Granted, the circumstances didn’t really warrant panic… but I was raised on Laura Ingalls Wilder stories, and my imagination is nothing if not skilled.

We inched along the mountainside twenty minutes more, then another twenty minutes, then yet another twenty, and I really have no idea what I’m saying because time was swallowed up in fog along with the rest of the world. All I know is that each step was an exercise in panic-squashing bravery. And we took a lot of steps.

Want to see?

Why yes, we did cross the width of an entire mountain. In steep snow. Through blinding fog. Carrying our boards. Terrified of losing civilization forevermore and/or tumbling down a precipice onto razor-sharp rocks (this one might have been just me). With no idea that at pretty much any point, we could have snowboarded down easily.

Once we finally got a feel for our surroundings and made it to the bottom, my floppety heart decided it had racked up enough [imaginary] near-death experiences for the week. I was ready to race Dan to the cable car and spend the rest of our vacation communing with our hotel room. But then he got me laughing about our ridiculous mountain trek, and then he got me on my board again, and before I knew it, we were wrapping up a fantastic week on the slopes.

Our last morning, we found ourselves at the same starting point staring into yet another cloud.

“We have to get to the opposite side one way or another,” he said.

“Mmm.”

“And it would be so much easier to just snowboard across the top than to walk with our boards at the bottom.”

“Mmm.”

“And even if it is foggy, we at least know what we’re doing this time.”

“Sort of.”

“Just as long as we don’t lose momentum.”

“Or look down.” Or think about Little House on the Prairie. Or use my memory in any capacity whatsoever.

“So, you up for it?” asked that irrepressible husband of mine.

From behind a ski lift pole drifted an unmistakable “Na na na na na na na.”

“Sure,” I answered. “Why not?”

18Mar

Carpe Defibrillator

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

In two days, we leave for the Alps. The snowboards are out of storage, 4,372,690,114 freshly-baked vacation cookies are cooling on the counter, and, per tradition, my heart is hiding in the tightest part of my esophagus.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in prairie country, but mountains terrify as much as they thrill me. On the drive up, I always imagine our car hitting a pot hole and plunging us down 3,000 feet of sheer rock to perish in a fireball of Die Hard proportions. Once we reach snow, I think about the treacherous ice canyons [probably] gaping under the thin frost on which we stand. Riding the ski lift, I imagine the cable snapping or a gust of wind flipping my chair upside-down over the highest drop. Buckling into my snowboard, I consider the myriad of ways I could die or, at the very least, end up horribly mangled on my way down the mountainside with no effort on my part.

Then I factor in the girls. With stunning internal cinematography, I can see an out-of-control skier lopping off their heads with his pole. I can see the girls tumbling off the edge of a precipice, barreling face-first into a tree, heck, even stumbling on a flat surface and breaking a wrist (which may or may not have actually happened to a certain father of theirs). I imagine fatal icicles, avalanches, surprise blizzards, and death by snowmobile… and they’ve never even been on the slopes yet.

Christina’s post yesterday about mothers’ fear of taking risks set me thinking… or rather, stopped my overly dramatic thinking in its tracks. “What is it about nature,” she asked, “and high places and sharp that seem so terrifying that it’s not even worth the supervised risk?” Well, everything, I thought. Then I began to remember some of my happiest childhood moments—reading on tree branches with leaf shadows dancing across my face and soft air beneath me… jumping from one boulder to another over mysterious, bottomless crevices… sitting on our car windowsill with the wind full in my face as we drove through State Parks… strapping on rollerblades and letting my brothers sling me back and forth across the street with long ropes attached to their bikes… exploring woods alone, wading swift rivers up to my neck, running barefoot through grass… Danger was the big kid on the playground, sure, but he wasn’t an enemy.

I will not be letting my daughters sit halfway out of a moving vehicle anytime soon, but I recognize that my [dramatic and mostly unfounded] fears should not keep them from experiencing the wild joy of nature. So we’re borrowing a sled tonight. We’ll rent a pint-sized snowboard. We’ll save seats for the girls on the cable car and show them the world from snowy peaks. I will make every effort to encourage carpe dieming, to have fun, and to quiet the panic every time one of them peeks down a hill. All the same, don’t be too surprised to find out I’ve stashed a first aid kit and a defibrillator in one my boots.

26Feb

A Miracle in Third Gear

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

The thing about miracles is that they fade over time. The more I run my fingers over the fabric of a perfect memory, wondering at the embroidery, feeling the threadcount of joy, the less color it has to offer until it becomes just another beloved quilt in the bottom of a trunk… and I start to forget that miracles exist. Until a new one falls bright-side-up in my lap.

Yesterday’s miracle started three Octobers ago…

Dan, Natalie, myself, and my prodigious baby bump had recently moved to Italy (after a summer that gave itself calluses fixing us up with miracles). We had a little apartment near Dan’s workplace but no car, so on this particular evening, we had taken a bus to the grocery store. We loaded the bottom of Natalie’s stroller with packages of diapers, cartons of milk, and a whole crate of mineral water before slinging as many bags as possible over the handles. My superhero husband shouldered the rest, and Natalie chattered two-year-old pleasantries while we made our way out of the store and up the hill to the bus stop—an endeavor that made me wonder if babies could pop out of their mothers’ straining neck muscles. Getting the loaded stroller and all our purchases onto the bus turned out to be something of a spectator sport, but at last we got ourselves settled in. Hard part over. All we had to do was relax and enjoy the ride home, albeit with the eyes of the entire bus on us crazy Americans and our menagerie of bags.

Two blocks from our stop, the bus took a hard left turn. In one dreadful moment, Natalie’s heavy-laden stroller fell over and our grocery bags flew down the aisle. Everyone on the bus let out a collective gasp and watched with various degrees of shock as Dan and I scrambled to right the stroller and comfort our terrified toddler. While I tried to balance Natalie on my massively pregnant lap feeling like the worst mother in all of human history, Dan tracked down peaches and jars of tomato sauce from under people’s seats. Any hope of dignity had fled the scene.

After making it home, checking Natalie over for bumps, and laughing a little ruefully over the whole thing, we came to a decision: We needed a car. Neither our produce nor our self-esteem could handle another bus episode like that (as if our impending Sophie weren’t reason enough), so we forked over €1000 for a rather old, rather used station wagon.

The idea from the beginning was that we would drive the car until it died and then get a better one. The clutch was already going, so it wouldn’t be long, but we expected to have all our legal paperwork and an Italian bank account within six months so we could get ourselves a proper family car. Only… the paperwork was delayed. And delayed. And then lost in a governmental black hole for two years. Meanwhile, our temporary car cheerfully zipped us around town. Okay, so one side-view mirror fell off (twice), and the other had to be held on with duct tape, and the gear shift knob tore off, and the trunk hydraulics broke, and the indoor lights didn’t turn on, and some days the hand brake wouldn’t work, and the battery had to be replaced after a harrowing experience in Rome with Rachelle, and we received dire warnings about the clutch going at a moment’s notice.

However, the car was unswervingly faithful to us and our lifestyle. It took us over ancient cobblestones, up the Dolomites, along the Amalfi Coast, through Austrian Alps, into Welsh fields. It accompanied us on countless day trips, on trains and ferries and country roads, and on our fantastically insane road trip to Ireland and back. We asked more of that car than we had any right to expect, but it always came through.

This brings us to last week when Dan finally received the document we’ve been waiting on this whole time and opened a local bank account. (Hooray! we say; also, How could that take 2½ years?!) The following afternoon, I was driving the girls home from the grocery store when the clutch started sticking, then growling and nipping and digging in its heels. It abruptly refused to go into gear anymore the moment I pulled up to our driveway. I shook for half an hour afterwards thinking of what could have happened had the car died a moment earlier and felt quite sure a divine power was looking out for us. But the miracle wasn’t quite finished yet.

We found our dream car over the weekend (at an incredible price, thanks to a dealership goof). The salesman agreed to take our old car as a trade-in, and we got the call yesterday that everything was ready for the switch. We arranged for the insurance to be changed over at 6:30; the problem was that Dan didn’t get home from his business meeting until 7. And that wasn’t the only problem. Possibly more concerning than the lack of insurance was the lack of gas in the car, and more concerning still was the stuck clutch. However, we had to get the thing to the dealership, so Dan managed to jam the car into third gear and set off into rush hour traffic. Without gas. Without insurance. Without being able to drive in anything but third and neutral.

And then the clutch bottomed out.

When Dan recounted the story to me later, I had a heart attack at this point. Rush hour traffic is brutal around here, and there are no road shoulders. Even with him talking in front of me, I was sure he had ended up in a mangled heap on some roundabout with the coverless gear shift sticking through an artery. I couldn’t look as he continued telling me how he could no longer take the car out of third or take his foot off the gas, and the engine was fighting for life in the bumper-to-bumper traffic… how he made it through the big roundabout but nearly stalled navigating the U-turn entrance to the dealership… and how the car shuddered to a final stop in the one open parking spot. A miracle.

We took our new adventuremobile out for a family joy ride later, but my thoughts were still with our old car. As I saw it, the timings of the past week could not have been coincidental, and I could feel the residual glow of the supernatural touching an otherwise mundane circumstance. It was a moment for feeling the thanks I couldn’t quite articulate. And with the texture of our experience still palpable and lush in my mind, I wished one thing above all else: that I could see the saleman’s face the moment he tries putting our old car into reverse.

Rest in peace, sweet car. You’ve earned it.

P.S. – Hello, sexy.

26Aug

Exclusive Access

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Car Lingus – Part 2 (Part 1 here)

My husband’s boss works consistent 90-hour weeks and sees vacation as a time to cram in even more hours. He will fly to the United States for a meeting and then fly back in a single day, and if he’s running late to a social event, he just might rent a helicopter. He also likes to pull over rude motorists using his fake police light. The man’s interpretation of rational is on a different planet than ours… but even he thought we were crazy for attempting a drive to Ireland and back with two small children and a trunkful of camping gear in tow.

(He wasn’t even factoring in the rain that awaited in every single country, every single DAY of our trip.)

I’ll admit it was disconcerting that a man who drinks fourteen espressos a day thought our vacation plan was madness, but many of our best family memories are a result of our spontaneous (and possibly deranged) travels. Day 13 of this trip was no exception.

We had a tentative outline of a plan for the day:
1)      Take ferry from Dublin
2)      See sun for the first time in a week
3)      Revel, tan toes on dashboard, etc.
4)      All fall asleep except Dan, who would
5)      Drive us to Cardiff, at which point, we would
6)      Try to find obscure campsite we looked up online
7)      Eat, sleep, continue homeward

We made it to point 3 ½ before the Welsh landscape outside the car started punching our eyes out with its otherworldly beauty. It was like Tolkein’s imagination come to life or God’s favorite mystery novel, or maybe the moon. We passed short stone walls holding up craggy green mountains dotted with sheep and shale alike. We glimpsed rock formations plunging into rivers and secret clefts lined with dusky purple heather… and then we spotted the waterfalls. Did we really have any choice but to pull over, wake the girls up, and go mountain climbing? (No.)

Natalie may be young, but I hope that afternoon will sparkle as much in her memory when she’s 86 as it does now. It didn’t matter that we were wearing completely the wrong shoes or that the wind whipped our thin jackets into batter; we were having an adventure together in some of the most enchanting landscapes on earth. We were mountain goats. We were cavemen. We were Sacagawea, Yeats, and Aragorn all at once. Dan picked bouquets of heather for us, then went off to scale a cliff while the girls and I sang “Old MacDonald Had a Waterfall” into the blustery sky until we were dizzy. It was perfect.

In keeping with the impulsive theme, we blew off our original plan and followed a campground sign near the adorable town of Betws-y-Coed. Can I give a shout-out to spontaneity right now? Because that is how we ended up pitching our tent in the sloping green of a Welsh sheep farm with Snowdon Mountain sneaking peeks at us through the clouds. It was far beyond what I had imagined when I added camping in a national park to Ye Olde Life List, far more breathtaking, epic. I’m starting to think of spontaneity as a members-only club that has exclusive access to all the magic in life. (You may not think sheep are anything magical, but don’t tell that to your toddler.)

The next day, after breaking camp in the sunshine and driving off in a thunderstorm, we made our way to a place with a different kind of enchantment, one whispering of human effort and mystery. Stonehenge was smaller than I expected at first… but it grew in my mind as we followed the giant ring in the earth, learning about its mythology. My spine has a special thrill reserved for secrets of the universe—impossible ancient architecture, symphony notes in space, the concept of eternity—and this cluster of tall blue stones reverberated with the magic of un-knowing.

We wandered into the surrounding countryside, having conversations with mistrustful cows and swinging on barrow gates. Time evaporated there under the rolling English skies; we could easily have drifted through the wild grass until we turned into barrow wights. Of course, then we would have missed our train across the Channel, an unspeakable horror to the tune of €120. We turned toward home, making the 1500 kilometer drive without incident and then holding a joyful (if not exactly conscious) reunion with our pillowtop mattress. However, I think a part of me stayed behind to haunt the island—clambering up Welsh outcroppings, holding trysts in Celtic forests, and tip-toeing around the mysteries of my British ancestors.

I guess this simply means I’ll have to go back again. Preferably soon.

24Aug

By the Spoonful

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Car Lingus – Part 1

It caught me by surprise every day of our crazy vacation. Slipping up behind me like boys in college used to do, covering my eyes and whispering, “Guess who?”, the realization that we’re seeing the world startled me into an aching kind of gladness. It’s the same ache that grips my chest at concerts and symphonies, while reading a perfect novel, during twilight Mass at the Notre Dame—when a trickle of fulfillment finds its way into my deep, deep need for beauty.

This was a trip for slurping beauty by the spoonful from the moment we drove off into the sunrise three weekends ago. That first day brought us through the Dolomites (“Elephant hills!” exclaimed Natalie in a fit of Hemingway) to the Austrian Alps—a fairytale panorama of glittering green mountainsides frosted in clouds. “The hilllllllllls are aliiiiiiiiiive!” I didn’t sing, though the untamed nun in me was quite tempted. Even more enchanting than the mountains were the cozy valley villages with their honey-and-cream houses, traditional red steeples, and flowers—flowers bursting from every window box, flowers spilling out of every garden gate, flowers brightening the woodwork on every balcony, flowers bringing extravagant glory to every street corner. Not even the downpour that evening could dilute the splashes of color.

I would have been content spending the rest of our vacation (and/or lives) eating Edelweiss cheese in a Hansel and Gretel cottage, but thankfully my husband convinced me to get back in the car. Our second day brought us through Pennsylvania fields a very familiar-looking stretch of Germany to the old world sophistication of Munich. Dear friends (hi, Heike!) walked us through downtown where beautiful buildings towered overhead and at least three H&Ms were always in sight. We had the distinction of being refused service at the Hofbräuhaus by a grumpy waitress in a dirndl, but Munich redeemed itself by offering river surfers, stark naked frisbee players (octogenarians all, unfortunately for our eyes), and pretzels and pints at a welcoming beer garden to end the day. Honestly, the city’s natural beauty paled in comparison to the loveliness of spending a day with people we adore… but that’s how it should be, isn’t it?

Our next destination was Folkestone, England, which we reached after driving through the farmlands of no less than five different countries in one day. (I like to think this makes us half superhuman, or quarter at the very least). The long, oh so very long trip in the car was worth every minute when we pulled into our campsite and looked out at this:

With the sunset rolling in across the Channel, Dover’s famous white cliffs gleamed like wild candles. We forgot about supper and walked along the shore, our hair waltzing with the wind, and befriended snails in every tide pool. On the four-year-old’s imperative, we pretended there were pirates in the water—an imagining colored in the next day by finding out there had been pirates only a week before. From then on, it was pirates as we browsed the shopping district and pirates as we explored a leery-eyed graveyard, and two very small pirates nearly burst with “Aarrrr”s when we found a sunken ship playground near the beach. Mutinous Mommy even found treasure by accidentally discovering Charles Dickens’ house during an uncharted ramble.

The next leg of our journey took us on a ferry cutting through the wide swath of deep blue water between Great Britain and Ireland. My first impression of the Emerald Isle was traffic, ack!, followed by brr, followed by brrrrrrrrrrr, followed by why didn’t we pack the winter coats?, followed by thank God our tent is so small that we HAVE to share body heat all night long. Sophie woke up in a pool of rainwater one morning, I routinely lost feeling in several extremities (including my head), and we may have resorted to ramen noodles for supper… but the silhouette of cloud banks over impossibly green grass was a beauty worth shivering for. (Plus, there was Smithwick’s on tap.)

On Day 13, we finally boarded the return ferry to start our long trip back home, little knowing that the most soul-thrilling beauty was still ahead…

(On to Part 2…)

15Jun

Ay to the Caramba

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 6 Comments

What was that? You want to hear the details of our overseas trip and/or are in the mood for horror? Well, if you insist.

I keep wondering if it all went wrong because we didn’t call a taxi. Saturday morning in Madrid was quiet, the whole city and the sun itself still groggy from their traditional late nights, and we decided to save money by taking public transportation to the airport. Technically, nothing went wrong (which is probably a miracle in itself). But by the time we had taken the bus, found the right Metro entrance, lugged the stroller up and down three sets of underground stairs, caught the two different trains for the airport, bought the ticket supplements to get into the airport, and walked for a week to the international terminal, we only had two hours left before our flight. And we couldn’t find the check-in counter.

Mangling the Spanish language beyond recognition, we asked an airport official for the American Airlines counter. He pointed us to the opposite end of the building, at which point we asked another official. He pointed us back the way we came. I thought bad words in Spanish. We finally found an information desk with—heaven!—someone who spoke English. “Oh no, no, no,” he clucked at us. “You can’t just ask anybody these things. You have to ask someone who knows. No, no, you are in the wrong terminal. You have to go outside and take the bus to Terminal 4. Here is the number for your check-in desk, and don’t worry; your flight has been delayed an hour!” We ducked away as he launched into a story about why some of the international airlines were not to be found in the international terminal, blessing the powers that be that we had an extra hour on our hands.

We took the bus. We found our counter. We waited in line until our turn… and found out it wasn’t the right counter. Not even the right airline. Oh, and our flight had not been delayed at all; it had been moved up. With only one hour left, we found the correct counter and waited a-tremble through the line. “Do not worry,” said the woman behind the check-in counter. “You have plenty of time. Except, there is a big problem.” She explained that their system did not show a ticket reserved for Sophie, and we were sent to wait in line at the ticketing office.

Natalie and I trotted off to buy some breakfast while Dan solved the situation, and when we came back, he was begging to talk with the ticket agent’s supervisor. Ten minutes later, he was still begging to talk with the supervisor. Twenty minutes later. Thirty minutes later. Finally, the ticket agent relented and called her supervisor, who shrieked on the phone, “Their flight leaves in twenty minutes?! Why are we still talking? Get them on the plane!”

Eight blue-clad employees sprang into action. They slapped tags on our luggage, shoved a temporary ticket into our hands, and told us to run. “We’ll figure this out by the time you get to your gate,” they assured. So we ran the fifty yards to security. We got through and ran to the shuttle. We got off at the right stop and ran to the passport check… and nearly plowed into the 400 people in line before us. No time for courtesy; we dodged our way to the front, explaining in-between breaths that our plane left in a few minutes. We made it through and ran like we’ve never run before to our gate, where flight attendants were calling “Bassett!” Natalie and I dashed onto the plane while Dan paid the finally-determined amount for Sophie’s ticket, and we settled into our seats with still-warm breakfast sandwiches as the overseas flight took off.

The situation was decidedly un-funny until we were up in the air, at which point a laugh and a few more bad words and then another laugh were in order. The flight was smooth, and the girls did great. Once we landed, all we had to do was catch a short connecting flight, and we’d be done. Well, pick up our luggage and then catch the connecting flight. Well actually, only pick up the particular luggage items that the airline hadn’t lost.

We waited while someone in a uniform looked below for our luggage, and by the time he assured us it wasn’t coming, the line for Customs was fanned around the carousels to the very back of the building. We looked up the time at the exact minute our connecting flight was scheduled to take off. I thought unscriptural things about our airline. After this point, the story just gets tedious and teeth-gnashing: more lines, still more lines, a screaming Sophie who got us promoted to the front of the line, no way to call the relatives who were supposed to pick us up, replacement tickets for a flight several hours later, a flight delay, a second flight delay, a third flight delay, a 20-minute flight through a lightening storm, and finally a safe arrival at an hour our bodies expected to be waking up from a long night of sleep.

I will need counseling and maybe a few exorcisms to get over the trip itself, but I can’t entirely begrudge the effort taken to get here… soaking up the Florida sun in the lazy river, eating chocolate frosting with forks, and cramming into the minivan to sing Beastie Boys at top volume (while Dan’s mom teaches Sophie DJ scratching motions). Oh, I love my family-in-law. Their superpower is talking—both the Italian mealtime variety and the midnight heart-to-heart kind—and they like each other. It’s exactly the kind of vacation my sponge-thirsty heart needs.

Especially after that trip. Ay to the caramba.

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