The Zen of Travel: The Karma of Flying (sometimes you’re the bird, sometimes the statue…)

Toulouse braves a hail storm in Denver

As Nina whizzed in our rent-a-car along the I-70 to the Denver Airport, I pointed out the huge dark cloud following us. She chuckled. “Cool, eh?” Well, that should have forewarned me about the nature of our trip. Yesterday it was warm enough to wear shorts. Today, the wind was chilly enough to curl my whiskers.     

The cloud not only caught up to us but then opened up its yawning “mouth” and dumped huge hail stones that drummed on the car like machine-gun fire and swirled on the road in front of us in a maelstrom of cold wind.

“Wow!” Nina said with a grin. She has a weird relationship with weather. I pointed out that this might affect our pending flight. But she waved me down and enjoyed the hail pummeling. I have to admit, it was pretty awesome. But I still shrank down under the Denver map.

The hail gave way to snow as we reached the airport early for our flight. The friendly United Airlines check-in

Dark shelf clouds approach

 clerk gave us the chance to opt as standby on an earlier flight by two hours. What turned out to be a critical two hours, of course. Nina turned the opportunity down, reasoning that we would just be stuck in Boston even longer (we were on our way to Halifax and scheduled for a 7 hour overnight lay-over in the Boston Airport, which she didn’t feel like prolonging). So, we settled in a Denver Airport bar and took our time, eating a meal and drinking a local beer with some rather chatty people…For instance, one gentleman, who shall remain nameless, insisted on calling me “Fluffy” after Nina introduced me by my proper name.

Denver Airport gets a dump of snow

In the time that we sat there drinking and listening to bad jokes, that huge black cloud enveloped us in a snow blizzard. Visibility out the window went from close to nil to nil. The snow came down in sideways sheets and blew up against the window. I don’t know if that other flight would have gotten us out sooner or we would have even gotten on it, but it’s interesting to contemplate.

When it came time to board the plane, they loaded us on time and all seemed well. But as Hamlet once said, “I know not ‘seems’…”  Seems is so overrated. Despite our early check-in, Nina neglected to ensure comfortable seating and we got a middle seat. We found ourselves sandwiched between a nervous woman from Boston, whose leg twitched a mile a minute, and a laconic young skier, whose leg decided to join the nervous dance. What is it with passengers who sit next to Nina??? Don’t answer that… I know… I know….

After a long wait, the plane moved off the gate. Then the world stopped. Our plane sat stranded on the tarmac for

Snow storm in Denver Airport

 five hours, and we sat stranded (thanks to FAA regulation) in our seats with our seatbelts fastened, waiting for clearance to de-ice. The plane was an abominable snowman by this point. And the leg twitching went into full bloom…

Ever curious, Nina turned to me and discreetly pointed to the fellow sitting in front who she could see between the seats. “That’s some serious postnasal drip!” she whispered to me. I craned and saw something seriously hanging off his nostrils. But it was a pair of nose rings. I then confirmed that Nina had taken off her glasses. This was going to be a long flight, I reflected with a sigh and pretended to nap.

The plane, scheduled for a 7 pm flight, finally took off at midnight. They did compensate: they gave us the onboard meals for free. Not that I was hungry anymore…

Then, to keep us from collapsing into complacent sleep, we hit some turbulence halfway through the flight. The nervous lady next to us kept shrieking with each bump, waking me up with a jolt. She made Nina jump too. It didn’t help that the pilot instructed the flight attendants to buckle up too and then summarily informed us that the fasten seat belt sign would remain on for the duration of the flight. Nina made sure she didn’t make eye contact with the nervous lady, who’d developed hiccups by now.

The plane landed with a bit of a thump—and shriek, of course—and Nina and I were on our way to our Halifax connection. Because of the delay, we just walked onto our next flight like civilized travelers.

The lesson for me this time: be mindful of my own advice on The Zen of Travel, enjoy the ride (and pay heed to black clouds)…

I’m Toulouse, the COOL Travel Cat… meow… :-3

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