STUPID TRAVEL MISTAKES

I am back in the Rock, and it feels good to be here, though I am missing my family and the always helping hands I had around.  And now, I have a confession.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you must know that we love to travel and take many opportunities to do so.  This year alone has taken us out of the state and country several times.  So, you would think that we would be experts at the traveling bit.  At least, I would think that we would be experts, and sometimes I trick myself into thinking that we are.

However, I am forever being proved wrong.  Or maybe we are just finding all of the mistakes that you can make and making them BIG.  Here are a few from the past -

It was the night before I was supposed to go to Northern Ireland with my school, and my mom and I began rummaging for my passport.  Bear in mind that my father had just passed away, and I had just graduated from college and moved home with no solidified plans so emotions were running at an all time high.  We never did find that passport.  Though we turned the house upside down, we were forced to conclude that it got thrown away.  You cannot leave the country without one.  So, in the midst of all that drama, I had to get a passport in 48 hours, which can be done with extra cash and fly to Ireland by myself.  Good times.  (And John and I started officially dating the next day.  It was a really momentous time of life.)  Passport fail.

Fast forward many years that included a marriage, a CFA restaurant, a child and another on the way and winning a cruise from our company.  As we were flying to our port, we made the critical error of leaving our passports (why is it always the passports?) in our bag that we gate-checked.  The gate-checked bags were totally overlooked for our flight, and we were in Miami and told that we needed our passports to board the cruise ship, but our bag would not be in til two hours after embarkation.  We were faced with the unique challenge of having a friend in Little Rock acquire the key to our house, find our birth certificates and marriage license and having them all faxed to the port before we could leave.  That was super stressful.  Another passport fail.

We've also done our fair share of the usual screw-ups like missing flights, getting on the wrong train in foreign countries and not packing appropriate clothing.

I am happy to report that our snafu this time has nothing to do with passports.  I am unhappy to report that we thought John would be flying home this (Monday) morning, when it turns out he will be arriving on Tuesday morning.  This was all discovered on Saturday evening through this text conversation from India.

I had been starting to wonder, because it seemed that they should have had to start heading back earlier to get home by Monday morning, and my growing suspensions were fully realized.  I actually had a bad dream about it that night, and sadly woke up to realize that it was all true.  It will wreck a bit more havoc on this week, but we will be fine.  I felt like crying when we figured it out, but I didn't.  All in all, it is okay.

And, it really is both of our faults.  I read the itinerary just like he did, and we didn't pay attention to the fact that he would leave India on the 12th but not arrive in the US til the 13th.  It's just one day, and in the end, Lord willing, he will arrive here safely - he is currently flying to the US from Dubai right now.

And I will continue to know that I am no expert in anything.  There are always mistakes to be made.  I guess it's good to be kept humble with stuff like this, though I may not like it.