Getting there is half the fun…

…but getting home can be a nightmare.

While getting there may not be fully half the fun, the terror of travel is mitigated by the anticipation of arrival – knowing that when you get there you are On Vacation! This anticipation tends to diminish the inevitable mishaps of travel.

Getting home, however, has no such mitigating factors. In fact, the opposite is true – being anxious to get home and sleep in your own bed, every mishap is amplified.

Thursday morning was long to begin with – the Davises, the Rowans and the Bowlers had already left, taking with them seven of the most adorable participants in our family fete in the Poconos. The Lesans took the remaining wunderkind early Thursday morning, leaving five tired adults to while away the last couple of hours closing up the Pine Hill Lodge before heading back to Newark Liberty Airport. It is a 2-hour (max) drive to the aiport; our flight was scheduled for 3:00 p.m.; we left Mt. Pocono at 10:30 a.m.

It was raining, to begin with. Our rented Sonata was filled to the max with five adults and their luggage, including the guitar. Aside from the rain, the drive was uneventful until Pops asked where we were and how soon we would come to our exit. This opened up a lengthy discussion involving all passengers, as the first analysis was that we were somewhere near Patterson, miles past our exit. In the end, this proved not to be true. With only one minor error we found our way to the lovely Wyndham Garden hotel (named for the Garden State?), turned in our car, loaded our bags into the shuttle, and headed towards Newark Liberty.

By the time we were in the shuttle we got our first clue of what might await us – a voice mail from our friends at Delta saying that the first leg of our flight was delayed, thus making it impossible to make our connection at Reagan International. The good news was that we had been rebooked on a direct flight to Salt Lake City.

Further investigation at the airport, however, uncovered a nefarious scheme of deception. Only Spencer had been rebooked on the direct flight. By the time the very helpful but essentially powerless lady at the Delta ticket counter had finished her work, Spencer still remained the only one traveling to Salt Lake on Thursday. Jenni cried. The Js ended up with a direct flight to SLC at 7:00 a.m. the next morning; Mother and I had a 7:00 a.m. flight to Atlanta, where we would then make a connection to SLC. And no, Delta would not pay for hotel rooms since this “was not a Delta problem” but was dictated by Air Traffic Control. We left Spencer at the airport, hauled our bags to the P4 terminal, caught the free shuttle to the Holiday Inn, bought two rooms, checked in, and took well-deserved naps.

Spencer was confirmed but his flight was overbooked, and in the end he volunteered for a $400 voucher, cab fare to Manhattan, and a first class seat from JFK to SLC on Friday morning. Being sufficiently rejuvenated after our naps, the rest of us called a cab which took us from the Holiday Inn to beautiful downtown Newark ($25) where we took the PATH to Manhattan ($6 for four of us). From the PATH station at the World Trade Center we walked down to Battery Park where the lovely Lizzie entertained the five of us (Spencer arrived shortly after we did) with appetizers in her luxury apartment before meeting JT and going to a wonderful little Thai restaurant. So in the end it was a very nice evening in New York with the Davises and the Christmas lights.

We set our alarms for 4:00 a.m. and made our way bleary-eyed to the lobby of the Holiday Inn on Friday morning, joining a score of other travelers on the free shuttle. There were some tense moments (the Js did not get seat assignments until everyone else had boarded – Jenni did not cry; our flight to Atlanta was delayed over an hour due to storms in Atlanta, making our connection dubious). In the end, Mother and I made a beeline for the SLC gate when we arrived in Atlanta and there were several standby passengers begging to get on, but the agent was saying he still waiting for two confirmed passengers. “That’s us!” He issued us our boarding passes – in First Class – and we began the last flight home…

In the end, everyone got something: the Js were the first ones home; Mother and I got First Class upgrades on both legs of our flight; and Spencer (the big winner here), got a First Class upgrade and a $400 voucher. And we all had dinner in Manhattan with the Davises. All’s well that ends.