Life of Wry

Trip Days #1 and #2

Our first day started on March 30, but ended on March 31.  So, this is a post about the first and second days.

After a couple weeks of committing to the trip, un-committing to the trip, and re-committing to the trip, I had only a month to make lists, read travel books and blogs, plan, shop, get shots and prescriptions for all manner of maladies, train as best I could–in flatness and in rain–and acquire and pack embarrassing amounts of gear.

This being Nepal and a trek among the highest mountains in the world, I also wanted to have certain info handy:

– I made a chart of our day-to-day itinerary–mileage, mountains we’d see, rivers we’d cross.

– I made a schematic of all of our elevation gains and losses along the way.

– I made a list of the peaks we’d see on this trip and their world ranking in terms of elevation (for the record, we’d see the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 15th, 20th, 24th highest.. wowowowow!).

– I made a handy conversion chart for both meters-to-feet and celsius-to-fahrenheit.

(Nevermind I also felt compelled to clean out the refrigerator, sort the coins in the spare change basket, call the dishwasher repair guy, finish up the unsent Christmas cards, file all the items in the to-file box, clear out the hat and coat area, sweep the porches, plus things up to which I will not fess… all to ensure that was leaving an orderly world for Peter and Jim while I was gone.)

I could finally say, for better or for worse: I’m ready to go to Nepal!

In uncharacteristic fashion (on time even!), we (Jim scored lots of husband points for driving me to the San Francisco Airport) left home in a cloud of calm and headed to Starbucks for the traditional road trip coffee & pastry.  At Starbucks, I chatted with people I knew in line, saying things like, “Me? Oh, I’m on my way to Abu Dhabi.”

All was good.

Mostly.

Before we’d even gotten to Dixon, I spilled non-fat cafe au lait all over my new fleece jacket.  A few cinnamon swirl coffeecake crumbs, too.  Let The Dirtiness Begin.

But then.. this happened.

We ran into a major snag around Richmond: a huge, miles-long traffic jam on I-80–the result of a big rig fire.

This traffic jam–which had brought the westbound lanes of I-80 to a complete and total, panic-inducing stop–threatened all my careful planning.  I might now miss my plane to Frankfort, which would result in my missing the connection to Abu Dhabi, which would mean I’d miss all that camaraderie-building and pre-trek bonding, plus, missing my flight might even screw up my Kathmandu arrival, which would mean I’d potentially miss the orientation and welcome dinner,  and hell, I may have to rethink the whole trek to Everest Base Camp…. this is BAD.

So, yeah… I sent a panicky stream of update texts to Karen, who was already at SFO, already at our gate.  And all I could do was stare plaintively at the traffic, trying to will it to move, and think, really?!  REALLY universe?  A TRA.FICK.JAM? Today? Now?

And, in the end, it was all ok, because they cleared a couple of lanes after about an hour, and traffic again flowed, and my texts to Karen–who was frantically texting messages back to me with lots of exclamation points and instructions to breathe–got less hysterical, and it was all fine.

Then, at the airport, after bidding a happy and relieved goodbye to Jim, I ended up in the wrong check-in line.  An honest mistake, as I had a ticket to Frankfort on Luftansa, dutifully stood in Luftansa’s Frankfort line with lots of other Frankfort-bound, German-speaking travelers, but, in fact, I should have been standing in the United line–for reasons that still baffle me.  After 30 minutes of blissful (if unwarranted) confidence, Luftansa officials kindly told me to go to a whole nuther check-in station two bays down. But, thankfully, it turned out to be a non-issue as United had no line at all (because I was so late) and I checked my bags uneventfully and took off to find Karen… with whole minutes to spare before my gate would close.

Meanwhile, she’d been texting me all along with excited sentence fragments like, “They’re calling your name” and “OMG, a double decker!!!,” and other things like that.

I arrived at the gate and saw Karen immediately, a beacon of green, which I would later learn is her color, and we were all, “Hi! How ARE you? YOU MADE IT! You look great!  How long has it been? Is that all you’re carrying? Are you ready?  WOW! Are you excited?  I knew you’d make it. I thought I’d never make it. Where are you sitting?  Which boarding line do we get in?  I got an aisle.  Are your bags checked through to Abu Dhabi? This is going to be great. I got a window.  You can relax now. I can relax now. Whew!  Whew!”  ETC.

Moments later, we boarded the giant, double decker 747, I dashed off a Facebook status update (of course), and we were off.

I didn’t see Karen again until we landed in Frankfort, Germany…. sometime the next day.  (Here we are having a snack in the airport in Frankfort.  See?  Green!)

As it turned out, this first day of travel would be a very well-orchestrated first day–a string of perfect connections.  The incidents that lead to the pair of near misses were the last close calls on the entire three and a half week trip.  Thereafter, we’d make every bus, plane, appointment, event, tour, meal, meeting…all of it.  Our itinerary would unfold exactly as planned, unaltered by weather, injury, sickness, traffic jams or failed alarm clocks.  Amazing!

But.. I’m getting ahead of myself…..  let’s move on to trip day #3…