URCNA Synod-14, Point of Personal Privilege (2)
I'm home! I arrived home just before midnight on Saturday night. I confess that, in spite of a great sermon in which I was genuinely interested, I had a difficult time staying awake during Sunday morning worship. After a long nap Sunday afternoon, I was more alert for the evening service. I usually can't get to sleep if I've had a long afternoon nap, but I had no problem last night.
Wow! It's really great to type on a full-size keyboard with a mouse! If there are typos and some incoherence in my previous Synod posts, please bear in mind that I was working from a laptop without a mouse and most were typed between 10:00 PM and midnight when my mind was about to shut down.
I'll return to my Synod report posts later, after I've had an opportunity to look over my notes, but there are some more personal observations I'd like to make. In this post, I'd like to explain why I didn't get home until nearly midnight.
Since booking a round-trip flight from Kansas City to Detroit was almost half as expensive as flying directly from Des Moines to London (Ontario), I traveled with the delegates from Kansas City. My husband drove me to Kansas City on Sunday afternoon and I flew out on the same flight as the delegates on Monday morning. We had a brief layover in Chicago and then flew on to Detroit, where they rented a car and we drove on to London.
On the return trip, we waited for an hour and a half in a long line at the border. We had to gas up the car, return it to the agency, take a shuttle to the airport, and walk to the check-in counter. We explained the situation to the airline representative and she got on the phone to check the status of our flight, which was VERY close to departure time. As soon as she got on the phone, we heard our names announced with a last call for boarding. We hadn't even checked our bags, let alone go through security and walk to our gate, so that loud speaker announcement was like a death knell for making our flight. She hung up the phone and said, "It's too late, the door is closed."
I think there's an analogy in there somewhere, but I haven't thought it through enough to go with it.
We knew the airline had several other flights to Chicago, so we were disappointed, but not too worried. Until she said, "Unfortunately, we run a reduced schedule on Saturdays so there's only one more flight to Chicago and it's overbooked."
We were placed an standby and prayed that somehow there would be seats for us. If there would be only one seat available, the kind men were going to let me have it since my daughter was in Kansas City for a wedding that afternoon and planned to pick me up at the airport and drive me the four hours home.
I called my husband to let him know we were on standby. He told me my daughter's car had spring a major radiator leak on the way to Kansas City, but that she was back on the road. He planned to borrow my Dad's trailer and head for Kansas City in case he needed to haul her car home.
When the flight was almost completely boarded, we heard our names announced. We waited in line and finally received our boarding pass. There was one more person who boarded after us. We were all very thankful that we made it on the flight, in spite of its having been overbooked.
We arrived in Chicago and had about 40 minutes before our flight, so we had time to quickly eat something before our "C" section began to board. I spoke to my husband and learned that he'd noticed a leak by a radiator hose on his Jeep before he left home, so he was installing a new clamp when the entire neck connection broke off and sprayed hot fluid over his left forearm and hand.
I had texted the flight number to my daughter (who was at the wedding) and understood the arrival time as "7:50" but we touched down at 7:20 (I may have misunderstood "7:15"). As soon as we touched down, I called my husband. He was in Kansas City. He had met my daughter and her friend and they had just ordered food, but they ordered it "to go" and drove to the airport. By the time I picked up my luggage and walked outside, they were there: my husband in my van, my daughter and her friend behind him in my daughter's car.
We drove home with one stop for gas. Green anti-freeze was puddling under my daughter's car and spurting out the front grill. I was so thankful my husband was with us. He produced a big container of anti-freeze and filled the radiator. (He's like that, always prepared for emergencies, we travel with a hydraulic jack and tool box.) We drove the rest of the way home without incident.
Stay tuned for more on Synod!
Wow! It's really great to type on a full-size keyboard with a mouse! If there are typos and some incoherence in my previous Synod posts, please bear in mind that I was working from a laptop without a mouse and most were typed between 10:00 PM and midnight when my mind was about to shut down.
I'll return to my Synod report posts later, after I've had an opportunity to look over my notes, but there are some more personal observations I'd like to make. In this post, I'd like to explain why I didn't get home until nearly midnight.
Since booking a round-trip flight from Kansas City to Detroit was almost half as expensive as flying directly from Des Moines to London (Ontario), I traveled with the delegates from Kansas City. My husband drove me to Kansas City on Sunday afternoon and I flew out on the same flight as the delegates on Monday morning. We had a brief layover in Chicago and then flew on to Detroit, where they rented a car and we drove on to London.
On the return trip, we waited for an hour and a half in a long line at the border. We had to gas up the car, return it to the agency, take a shuttle to the airport, and walk to the check-in counter. We explained the situation to the airline representative and she got on the phone to check the status of our flight, which was VERY close to departure time. As soon as she got on the phone, we heard our names announced with a last call for boarding. We hadn't even checked our bags, let alone go through security and walk to our gate, so that loud speaker announcement was like a death knell for making our flight. She hung up the phone and said, "It's too late, the door is closed."
I think there's an analogy in there somewhere, but I haven't thought it through enough to go with it.
We knew the airline had several other flights to Chicago, so we were disappointed, but not too worried. Until she said, "Unfortunately, we run a reduced schedule on Saturdays so there's only one more flight to Chicago and it's overbooked."
We were placed an standby and prayed that somehow there would be seats for us. If there would be only one seat available, the kind men were going to let me have it since my daughter was in Kansas City for a wedding that afternoon and planned to pick me up at the airport and drive me the four hours home.
I called my husband to let him know we were on standby. He told me my daughter's car had spring a major radiator leak on the way to Kansas City, but that she was back on the road. He planned to borrow my Dad's trailer and head for Kansas City in case he needed to haul her car home.
When the flight was almost completely boarded, we heard our names announced. We waited in line and finally received our boarding pass. There was one more person who boarded after us. We were all very thankful that we made it on the flight, in spite of its having been overbooked.
We arrived in Chicago and had about 40 minutes before our flight, so we had time to quickly eat something before our "C" section began to board. I spoke to my husband and learned that he'd noticed a leak by a radiator hose on his Jeep before he left home, so he was installing a new clamp when the entire neck connection broke off and sprayed hot fluid over his left forearm and hand.
I had texted the flight number to my daughter (who was at the wedding) and understood the arrival time as "7:50" but we touched down at 7:20 (I may have misunderstood "7:15"). As soon as we touched down, I called my husband. He was in Kansas City. He had met my daughter and her friend and they had just ordered food, but they ordered it "to go" and drove to the airport. By the time I picked up my luggage and walked outside, they were there: my husband in my van, my daughter and her friend behind him in my daughter's car.
We drove home with one stop for gas. Green anti-freeze was puddling under my daughter's car and spurting out the front grill. I was so thankful my husband was with us. He produced a big container of anti-freeze and filled the radiator. (He's like that, always prepared for emergencies, we travel with a hydraulic jack and tool box.) We drove the rest of the way home without incident.
Stay tuned for more on Synod!
Labels: URCNA Synod
posted by Glenda | 6:36 AM
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