The Trip to Vermont.

This could be a lengthy post or it could be not so lengthy. Kind of depends on the wind.

So we packed the family for a trip out to Vermont to visit my in-laws. Some may be saying "Ooo! In-laws!" Well, there's no need to be like that. My in-laws are wonderful down-to-earth folks. But I digress... The first obstacle, of course, was getting packed. Heather and I work opposite schedules. This can, and did, make packing a bit of a challenge, but my wife (the intrepid organizer) led the charge and we actually managed to get to bed at a semi-reasonable hour the night before the flight.

Ok, here's the thing about airliners. Your garden-variety economy seat is not made for your garden-variety 6'7" human being. Ordinarily, I would have asked to be re-seated in the emergency row aisle where the leg room is a bit more accomodating. However, I was with my family and had no desire to incur the wrath of the mother sitting alone with an 11-month old and a 5-year-old. I felt some of this wrath on a previous trip. Men can learn. Just don't expect it. So I didn't ask...until Heather encouraged me to. "Are you sure?" "Yes, don't be stupid and hurry up before you lose the chance." "Yes, dear." So, I got the go ahead from the flight attendant and moved to relief. I stayed in that seat for about an hour then ambled back to re-claim my old cramped quarters, but the wife with the recently granted extra space shooed me away with a bit of an "are you nuts?" look on her face. I do love her.

Here is a note on the kids during the trip out. They were amazing. Amazing enough that a lady in the seats behind us (ok, them) commented that they were the best behaved kids she had ever seen on an airplane. Amazing what a little whiskey can do. All right, not really. Here is the key to Andrews's complacence.

That thing just spins and flashes lights, but he's 11-months old and that's apparently all he needs. And despite initial fears, it didn't cause any seizures. If you ever see this thing in action, you will know what I mean. If you're interested, just Google® "magic spinning ball".

And Dylan? Well, Dylan was incredible almost entirely on his own. He colored some in his Spiderman coloring book and watched the in-flight movie and was generally pretty helpful whenever called upon. Go Dylan.

We made the transfer to the commuter plane at Dulles and were on our way to Burlington. It was on this plane that Dylan had his personal highlight. The plane had the seats situated with two seats on one side of the aisle and one seat on the other side. He got the one seat. I'm not sure he was excited about it, except that was pretty much how he introduced himself to anyone he met over the next couple of days "I got to sit ALONE!"

So we made it through 8 hours of travel with nary a scratch. I think I will cut this here and provide more details with ensuing posts. Cheers!