A single step

I left off with us on the train and I am writing this almost ten days later. I meant to write an update every day, but, never having done it before, I underestimated the exhaustion that a 22 kilometer walk can cause you to experience. 

Where do I begin? The taxi was waiting for us in Ourense and we made it to Sarria around 8.00 p.m. The lady at the reception was super sweet and helped us very quickly, gave us tips on where to eat dinner and also set up the baggage transport we had asked for. Our baggage would be moved to each hotel we were staying in, ahead of us. We ate empanadas and then churros with hot chocolate( our first taste of heaven, but not the best of the lot), something Vincent had asked us to do and went back to the hotel.

We had no clue about what we had to do the next day. From what Vincent had told us, I assumed that we pack light and stock up on water and any other absolutely essential stuff and walk. We went off to bed, sore and tired but sort of worked up and so basically didn't sleep too much. Thoughts ricocheting in our minds about how things would go,  mingled with an impatience to start the journey. We had decided to start walking at 6.30 a.m and we had already bathed and laid out our clothes. 

So we woke up after barely having slept at all and got ready,  dragged our suitcases downstairs left them in the allocated space for pick up and walked out into the darkness.  And dark it was! Pitch dark . My headlamp was of great help and we gradually started seeing people with backpacks and walking sticks and knew we were on the right track. Phone in hand( Google maps), we walked. Not too fast, not too slow. Chatting away and noticing our hearts starting to thump a bit. The backpack felt heavy..and the shoes seem to pinch. The silence surrounding us was eerie and comforting in some way. The sky started to pinken in an hour and the road became more visible. More pilgrims visible now and our curiosity was piqued. Were they walking the 114 miles like us or even farther?

The first cafe came  up in slightly over an hour and we stopped only to stamp our passport. And we were the first to walk out. No one ahead of us and no one within eyesight behind us. Google was guiding us and we resumed our walk. We were walking through oaken forests and the sky waa taking on a beautiful glow when, about a half hour into our walk, we noticed that there were absolutely no pilgrims to be seen..we stopped in our tracks and looked around us. No pilgrims, and it began to dawn on us that we were lost and not on the Camino any more Looking it up on Google, it dawned on us that we had followed it a little too sincerely and it had led us astray. Google was about the absolute shortest route, not the holy one. Luckily I had a Camino app that let me see where we were. So we were able to walk a couple of smaller roads and rejoin the Camino. Phew!!

From then on, we made sure we were following another pilgrim, or had one in our sight either behind us or before us.

Our first breakfast break was around 10.00 a.m in a cafe jam packed with pilgrims and we had our first taste of 'othering'

 I guess there weren't too many Indian ladies on the Camino. And it never crossed people's minds that we could be from anywhere else. I was asked how I was going to pay for the food- rupees? I had to, in my broken Spanish, explain that I was from the US and that I would be paying in dollars.  Ah, the horror!! 

And we soldiered on. Kilometer after kilometer. Our calves started to hurt, our feet started to hurt and we still had a few kilometers to go. Thirst was a constant and we drank so much water ans still  the thirst wasn't slaked. The realization hit me ( not sure about my two fellow pilgrims) that we had to do this over and over again for 5 more days. No breaks, no long rests except our sleep at night. No excuses. No dilly dallying. And some of the upslopes almost killed us. We panted our way up the slope and felt faint with exhaustion. 

And finally, we spied Portomarin, our first halt on the Camino. Vincent had mentioned a steep set of stairs to enter the town, but neglected to mention that the last kilometer involved a downslope of rock hewn uneven steps that felt like you would tip over any minute and break more than a couple of teeth into the bargain.

Luckily a young girl explained to us that we might as well sit on each step and shimmy down. And it worked!

We finally made it to Portomarin and dragged ourselves into the hotel we had booked. The luggage had gotten there ahead of us.The town was charming, and the church was literally steps away from where we stayed. After the first meal of our walk, where we sat down and ate croquettes and padron peppers and squid and chicken ..I attended the pilgrim mass and we went off to lay in bed and recuperate, knowing full well that we would have to get up and do it all over again. And the next day was our longest day with 24 kilometers to be walked.

Three ladies, one bathroom- need I say more? We decided that we would all bathe at night, pack our bags for the next day and only do the what needed to be done in the morning, so we could just start walking. 

And off to bed we went. Happy that we had taken our first steps.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Ours did too. In fact our first day , we clocked more than 30,000 steps. And we knew we had many more to take.

The way of the Lord

I am sitting in a Renfe high speed train that's going 300 kms/ hr. My two friends are sitting across the aisle and nodding off. We have about 2 more hours to go on this train and we are already tired to the core. A meticulously planned trip took a wild turn,all because an airline decided to do maintenance on a plane bound to Madrid. 

This trip has been more than a year in the making. We did a trial run last year and felt we could tolerate, why even enjoy, spending days on end together, not just shooting the breeze, but slogging it out. 

And so we planned things, we booked tickets, planned our walking days and halts. We booked hotel rooms and train tickets and plotted our itinerary and finished it all up, way before the actual day arrived. 

Every leg had time cushions attached so we wouldn't miss a connection or lose a trip.

But, as usual, the world had other plans.

My flight to Dallas to meet up with my friends was delayed by about 30 minutes, but no issues because the flight to Madrid was almost 4 hours later and we knew I would be fine.

We met up at the gate allocated to us and we were happily catching up when we noticed that all our phones pinged with a notice that the flight was delayed by an hour. No big deal because we had built in cushions. But that cushion evaporated in a matter of minutes.

The new time was almost 4 hours later than the original. That was it! Poof!!

That began a frantic search for alternatives to get to the town we were starting our walk in. Oh, did I mention we were walking the last 113 kms of the Camino? So we had to get to Sarria to begin our walk and our direct train from Madrid to Sarria would leave way before we even got to the train station from the airport. Vincent who it seems, is more invested in my pilgrimage than I am, instantly volunteered to look for alternatives and since we were sitting and twiddling our thumbs while cursing American Airlines with every swear word possible, we put our heads together and starting looking at other options. Unfortunately the train we would miss was the last direct line to Sarria and every other train after that required a change. That's when it hit me that Ourense seemed to be the connecting point for trains to Sarria, but the layover was too long. A taxi service though, took slightly over a hour to get to Sarria from Ourense.

So we asked Vincent to rebook us on the train to Ourense at a later time and requested the hotel that we were staying in to book a taxi for us. And our flight to Madrid took off.

To add insult to injury, there was no wifi on the international flight and so we had no idea if Vincent had even rebooked tickets for us.

After a tiring 9 hour flight into Madrid, we turned the airplane mode off on our phones to find a message from Vincent about our new tickets for a later time. Love the guy to bits!!

Got off the plane, finished immigration and customs picked up our luggage and walked to an information booth to ask about taxi versus train service to the Madrid main station to board our high speed train. The sweet and helpful lady there suggested the train to get to the station instead of a taxi. Done!!

The ticket machines waa tricky..but one of our friends managed to break the code and we bought tickets to the main station and got to the right platform and boarded the train. 15 minutes later, we were at the main station which waa biuzzing with people. We figured out where we needed to be to board our train to Ourense and finally made it to the train.

And that is how we find ourselves seated in a high speed train, fighting off sleep and waiting for the last leg of our trip..our taxi ride to Sarria.

Tomorrow we will begin our pilgrimage and we will surely forget what a rush it was,with all its twists and turns to get to our starting point.  For where we start doesn't matter does it? Where we end is what counts and we surely will, by the grace of God, end where he wants us to.

Strange Bedfellows

Mention the name 'Bundy' and one of two people come to mind. Ted Bundy the serial killer or Al Bundy the dad from 'Married with Children' .

But for Oregonians,the name 'Bundy'  rings up a different memory. Almost exactly ten years ago, a bunch of wackos took over the Malheur National Forest in Eastern Oregon, fighting against Government overreach and held it until the Feds finally broke it up after a month.

The ringleader was a guy named Aamon Bundy and he is still upto some trouble here and there. I wasn't paying him any attention considering our country is going to hell in a handbasket, so to say.

Yesterday's gospel reading was the Beatitudes and hearing it, specifically, two of them, reminded me of the other set of wackos, the Christian Fundamentalists who hijacked the whole thing and insisted that they were being persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

The two that I though were being so, so misinterpreted and taken advantage of are these:

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"  

Miriam Webster defines being righteous as "acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin" and also "morally right or justifiable" and "arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality"

Here is how I understand righteousness:

I'm in line at the grocery store and a mom with a fully laden cart and two naughty toddlers is struggling behind me. Letting her take my spot is not necessary because I'm there by right. But letting her go ahead of me might give her a 5 minute break from the cutie pie hellions- legal? Just? Righteous?

Someone ahead of me is driving 10 miles below speed limit. For the last ten minutes, you've been behind them and your hands itch to hit the horn. But what if they a new driver still hesitant to hit the accelerator and not gifted with a concrete foot like you? Patience... 

But extrapolate this on a larger scale..much larger scale..to humanity itself.

I look at what ICE is doing for the last few months and what the administration has been doing this last one year. Illegal immigrants are illegal. There is no two ways about it. People need to enter the country legally. Completely agree. But going after immigrants  who entered the country years ago and are actually productive citizens( used the word intentionally), contributing to society, with no criminal history, and deporting them, by separating them from family and returning them sometimes not even to their country of origin, seems on the surface legal..laws were broken,  and this is how it needs to be addressed. Hunting them down at their place of work, at hospitals where they go for treatment, at courthouses where they have hearings exactly about their immigration status. Is it righteous?

Stamping down on protests by teargassing people, and shooting them dead? That doesn't even sound legal. Forget the moral part.

A government shutdown, and promptly SNAP benefits becomes the victim of the debacle. Families below the poverty line wondering where their next meal comes from. Legal, because part of the shutdown is indeed these issues. But righteous? Moral?

All through this, the smug fundamentalists smirking that this is perfectly fine because laws are laws and there is no grey area in that. That they all got here legally and so should everyone. 

Also the abortion debacle, portraying themselves at victims compelled to have abortions when in reality they were legislating to make it unavailable to everyone, including people who were not of their religious persuasion. And  rejoicing when Roe Vs Wade was turned down because their ' righteous' cause was upheld..

Read about this lady who felt that protesters in Minneapolis should be shot and put out of their misery..all for protesting government overreach.  Proud Christian supposedly.

Which brings me to Aamon Bundy. There was an article in The Atlantic about how Aamon Bundy disagrees with the protesters being murdered by the Feds. He calls that tyranny and the whole immigration thuggery by ICE a 'moral failure '. Whoa, Aamon Bundy! I never thought I'd live to see the day! He is true to his beliefs though..that every human being has inalienable rights irrespective of places of birth or social status or even immigration status and government overreach is always wrong. 

So righteousness is doing the right thing- the morally right thing. For the Bible also says,

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 

The least, the most in need- of help, of sustenance,of aid. That is what ultimately matters. 

All that self righteousness is going to get you into a lot of trouble. 

'Prepare the way of the Lord;Make His paths straight.'

His path is strewn with the poor and the neglected and the needy  and we are called to help them however we can. The question is, will we?

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The Destination

When I said our trip was 'meh' I meant that in comparison to what happened before. You are sure you've managed to step out of the maelstrom of the previous two days, but there is this niggling doubt, that maybe you haven't? In hindsight, we had, we absolutely had, but it is a realisation that came much later.

So let's start from the beginning:

Way back in 1990, I went off to this little town called Karaikudi in my home state to do my Engineering degree. We were about thirty female to about 200 males. Weird ratio right?

Anyway, most of us availed of the hostel facilities there and only three ladies, more like girls, we were teenagers, were what we called day scholars, attending classes and going back home because they were Karaikudi natives. While the hostelers mixed and mingled on a daily basis, the day scholars were people we met in class and nothing more. So we were on a slightly distant kind of dynamics with them. And then we had various departments and people tended to make closed friends with people who were in their department. Too many variables huh?

So ultimately, you made lifelong friends based off a completely complex calculation, factoring in a myriad set of criteria. And then if you move away to the US, running into each other becomes an even more rare thing and sometimes friendships fizzle out. 

But beyond this, sometimes, another conglomeration of events can set things on its head. What was in the periphery, suddenly is front and center. What didn't catch yor attention is now engaging your senses. 

As usual there is a catalyst that sets things in motion, and that, in my case was the 25th reunion that was being planned for our Engineering class of 1994. Teams were formed for various aspects of the reunion and I happened to take up part of the memoir preparation work. And I ran into a classmate who had been a day scholar and therefore not on my radar way back in the 90s. Not that we fell into each others arms right away, but we did, gradually. We found that we thought alike, hated the same people ( which is a huge thing!!), looked at life with the same perspective. That we lived in the US made the whole thing more attractive because we could possibly meet once in a while. Which we have I should say, much to my happiness. 

And that social media bane, Whatsapp, turned out to be boon this time, introduced me to the other friend that I am close with and we had been together in the hostel and like I  mentioned previously, hadn't been close too because that complex calculation hadn't resulted in close friendship, but more  of a nodding at each other level of familiarity.

But here, our our friendship thrived. We were reliving our college days from 30 years ago and tentatively feeling each other out about people we went to college with and how we felt about particular classmates etc. Like they say, ' tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are'. Surprisingly, we noted,that we did have an aversion to the same set of people. I am writing this with absolutely no guilt. Not liking certain people is, in my opinion, a virtue and it speaks volumes about what kind of person you are. You don't have to go after them with hammer and tongs, but steering clear of them in itself indicates  your intolerance for certain values, attitudes and behaviors. 

I digress. 

We slowly grew our friendship, with Whatsapp helping. A reunion in Colorado last year cemented our status as friends and then we let loose. We chat, we call, we meet. We talk about any and everything and people who went to college with us look askance at our little gang! I'm sure it surprises them as much as it surprises us that we weren't exactly friends 30 odd years ago as teenagers, but here we are,  in our fifties, thick as thieves. We sometimes wonder why we weren't friends back then, but the algorithm didn't work then. And there is a time for everything and this was when it was preordained that we become close. We don't defer to each other much, we have lively arguments about things and don't always agree on things either. Our taste differ, from clothes to food to books to TV. But age has given us the wisdom to know when to draw close and when to give each other space.

Circling back to my first post about the Camino, these were the two friends, I decided , would form the perfect trio to walk for days with. If a one day trek worked out, 5 days should be ok.

Thanks to our Alaska Airlines fiasco, my two friends had a day to themselves but were constantly in touch with us asking for updates and they even stayed awake Friday night until we had landed and were finally in bed at the hotel.

Saturday came bright and early and we all slowly awoke and got ready and finally stepped out of the hotel, took the shuttle and went back to Hertz and got our car. A big fat, Buick Enclave..accomodating six people.  Off we raced to pick up my friends at a pre-arranged spot. Breakfast at Waffle House and off we drive to San Antonio. 

We managed to get the requisite passport for stamping at each Mission and the lady at the Pigrimage center assured us that our certificate would be ready for pick up when we walked back to the pilgrimage center later. However the center would close at 3.00 p.m instead of 5.00 p.m because there was a wedding being officiated there. But she gave us the number of a person to contact once we got to the center, who could get us our stamps. That was so nice of her. When things go the correct way, they exuberantly do!

We drove to the last mission on the Camino: Mission Espada, because our plans was to end at the Cathedral San Fernanado in downtown San Antonio. Parking the car at the Mission, we  began walking. Each of us had a back pack, water, hat, snacks and plenty of good spirits. The weather cooperated massively. Not too hot, no rain, cool and bright.

We took about forty five minutes to the next mission, San Juan. Noe and Manny enthusiastically joined me and the aunties and they took turns walking with each of us and on the whole we had a great time. We weren't tiring,  but we had our eyes on the time because we had started 3 hours later than anticipated and so had to hurry a bit. The next mission, San Jose took us and hour and a half partly because it was a beautiful walk and also because we took a break to buy shaved ice and salted cucumbers from a pushcart vendor on the way. We took pictures, hydrated ourselves on the sugary ice and meandered on the path.

We took a reasonably long break at the Mission San Jose and then Manny and Vincent rented electric bicycles to drive back to Mission Espada so they could drive the car back to pick us up.

So the three of us with Noe as our male protector, walked another one and a quarter hour to the Pilgrimage Center at Mission Concepcion. As promised, one phone call and we had our certificates presented to us, but we had the last leg of the walk to finish. 

By then Manny and Vincent were there with the car, and we palmed Noe off on them. And then, it was just us. With an hour long walk left. 

We took off, just the three of us, chatting about this and that,  and since we were walking within the city, we had crosswalks to watch out for, traffic lights to wait at and our flagging energies to pay attention to. 

My legs were bothering me and when I mentioned it to my friend, she laughingly said she had held back from saying it because it would probably bring us all down, but we did concede that we were tired and achy.

But we kept up. Our chatting gave way to this focus to put one feet in front of the other and surreptitious looks at the GPS to see how many minutes were left.

The last thirty minutes of walking was in downtown San Antonio and so the crowds increased and there were more distractions,  but we persevered. 

And finally, the Cathedral came into view. And right at the light, my family stood facing us and waiting for us to cross the road to join them in walking the last 100 feet to the Cathedral. 

Walking into the Cathedral was awe inspiring for me and funnily we walked in right when the Lord's Prayer was being said at Saturday Mass.

Peace, peace is what the Lord wants us to have. "Peace I leave you,  my peace I give to you". 

The entire verse,John 14: 27, is:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. In a world filled with negativity, peace is more valuable than all the riches the world can offer.

And what is more peaceful than a long leisurely mindful walk with desirable company and love and laughter?

Tired but happy that we had achieved what we had set out to do, we had dinner and drove back to Austin and went our ways.

The walk was rushed, not the pace, just the inability to take breaks. We didn't walk around the Missions, rich with history and tradition. We didn't dawdle anywhere, it was like eyes on the prize. But we were tested and passed with flying colors. We, as a trio, withstood the pressure exerted and came away unscathed. We know we can do the longer walk, no questions asked. That is a long long time away and for now, we are soaking in our success!

Journey Part 2

After falling in bed at 12.30 a.m Thursday night ( or was it Friday morning?), we woke up and had the whole day to kill before it would be time to take the flight.

Since we had to scrap all our plans to celebrate Manny's birthday at Austin, we decided to buy something at a bakery that we frequented. And Manny decided he wanted slices of all the cakes they had instead of just one cake. So we walked out with big fat slices of Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Raspberry,  Strawberry, Pumpkin Spice and Vanilla Caramel cakes.

I had almost cleaned out all the vegetables in the refrigerator and so we had to settle for a salad and of course the yummy cake slices for lunch and make do with just that. Which isn't a complaint, the cakes were too delicious for words.  

Thursday's fiasco was soon forgotten as we got ready to do the whole thing all over again.  Leave at 2.00 p.m, park the car at the parking lot, take the shuttle, get to the airport, clear security, and reach the gate. Hopefully our experience would diverge after that, fingers crossed!

Oh, we had been given food vouchers for twelve, twelve  solid dollars by Alaska for the horrible experience of the previous day. We used them to buy dinner, but funnily, we didn't buy dinner in any of the places we had, the previous day. That would be jinxing things we thought!

Back to the gate, a different one this time, and we noticed that the incoming flight was late, not by much, but enough for this little quiver of worry in the pit of my stomach.  It can't happen again, can it?

We took off thirty minutes late but we did take off and were just going to be a little late, nothing big.

The flight was uneventful and we even had a lightning show at 30000 feet,the likes of which I've never seen before.  Portland has tame rainfall, slightly heavier than dew with barely any thunder or lightning to gussy things up. This show went on for about thirty minutes and finally it was time to land. We were starting to descend, but after a few minutes I noticed that we weren't actually descending anymore, but staying steady at that altitude.  Were they dumping fuel? That's for emergencies I knew.

I frantically texted the resident aviation freak who was sitting in the row ahead of us asking what that meant and he reassured me that if it were bad, they would have announced it.

Finally after half an hour of circling, we  landed, an hour later than the original ETA. We didn't simply land,we landed straight into a thunderstorm. 

Chennai has its fair share of thunderstorms and I grew up experiencing quite a few, but this one was something.  The rain blowing sideways and the light and sound show that I saw from the air continuing on the ground. And the pilot came on the PA system,  to let us know that it seemed like a fast moving storm prevented us from taxiing to the gate and so we had to wait - at the tarmac- the one experience we had been spared on Thursday. 

And wait we did a good thirty minutes more, watching the rain lashing the plane and lightning lighting up the entire airport. I was sitting there  at the tarmac, watching this fire and brimstone fury of nature and planning ahead.

So obviously our Hertz rental car pickup had to be done without agents because they close at 1.00 a.m and it was already past that time. I had already let the hotel know that we were skipping Friday but would check in after  midnight . So the room should be ready for us. I looked forward to the bed in the hotel room so much!

We deplaned, picked up our luggage and walked to the Hertz counter, where obviously there was no one. But a traveller( his luggage gave him away) asked us if we were there to pick up a car and let us know that Hertz had had an outage and we couldn't pick up a rental. What?? This was confirmed by a couple of, it seemed like Hertz employees, who walked in at that moment.

I was livid. Here we were, stuck at the airport, with no car to take us to the hotel. Which was just five minutes away.

We walked out of there and were thinking of options- Uber? Taxi? Then it hit me that hotels near airports have shuttles. Voila!

One phone call and 10 minutes later, we were on the shuttle going to the hotel. That was one knot that disentangled well.

I marched right up to the check in desk and gave the lady my name. After a two minute search, she very gently asked me if I was at the wrong hotel..I was at a loss for words at that point! 

Murphy's law in action!!

Here's the Google version:

'This phrase is known as Murphy's Law, which states that "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." It reflects the idea that if there are multiple ways for something to fail, the worst outcome is likely to occur.'

So one more word added to my Lexicon. Groundstop, crew timing out, and now Murphy's law. 

Life teaches you lessons, but I could have done without the accelerated version.

I took a deep breath and let her know our circumstances and showed her the text message I had been sent the previous day, welcoming us to the hotel.  That actually helped because they had actually checked us in the previous day and that was why my reservation hadn't popped up on Friday. I had already checked in on Thursday. 

Finally, key cards in hand, we took the elevator upstairs and opened the door to our hotel room at 2 00 a.m Saturday, the day we had planned to walk, starting at 9.00 a.m. Seven hours to go.

Bliss! We changed into pajamas and crashed into bed and were out in minutes.

Murphy's law in action was a sight to behold, but I lay in bed and in the few minutes before I nodded off , it hit me - we were exactly where we needed to be Friday night. In Austin, in bed, safe and sound, warm and cozy ,tired but finally contented. 

The walk we had planned had religious dimensions obviously, but my friends weren't Catholics and we were undertaking this journey as a mindful walking process.

But God, whatever name you call him by, has you in his sights.  As it is said in Isaiah 49:16 -

'See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;'

It might seem like the walls are closing in, but no, he literally will hold you up and save you.

 My friend actually reminded me to include this in the post, I'd almost forgotten it: We have had a habit of praying before undertaking any journey and so we had prayed before we started from home on Thursday. When I reminded Noe to pray before we left on friday, the answer was a curt, "No!" And an explanation, "We already prayed yesterday!"  Noe's confidence is enviable. No worrying that God might have forgotten us in his busy schedule, and needed to be reminded again.

And so I went to bed, happy and grateful that we have someone watching over us, making sure things get straightened out and go our way. 

And, yeah we got our car rental the next day without a fuss..

The walk was uneventful,  and the rest of our trip was' Meh'..but I for once, loved, absolutely loved, the ' Meh'!!

Journey, Part 1

Every journey begins with a single step and this one began not even with me taking that single step.

It was Vincent's journey that spurred my mine and so all the credit for this post and everything that we did or experienced ( good or bad, you’ll find out why I said that, as you keep reading) goes to him. 

When he did the Camino and came home, he went on and on about it (and still does) and that is what gave me this idea that maybe I should do it too, not the entire 700+ kilometers, but the last 100, which would still get you the coveted certificate.

 And unlike my husband, I cannot imagine walking alone. Cue the music! I have managed to reconnect with a couple of friends from my college days and we decided that we would maybe walk the Camino together. But that is still a long time away. 

In the meanwhile,Vincent discovered that there is a much smaller Camino, an almost 13 mile one, here in San Antonio, Texas which sounded intriguing. We did want to walk the original one, but were wondering how to see if we would be able to walk together and make the distance in a decent time and also not start hating each other on account of the proximity. 

This one day trip seemed the perfect way to find out. So we planned and plotted.

 After a couple of probable dates fell through, we finally settled on October 25th of this year. And my sweet family decided they were coming too! Well, the more the merrier. 

The flight tickets were booked, the hotel room was reserved and the car rental was paid for and we were eagerly anticipating the walk. We all had practiced on a minor level by ourselves and felt we could manage the trek.

So one friend was coming in from Dallas. The other was an Austin native and we were flying in from Portland. We were arriving close to midnight on Thursday, spending a day sightseeing Austin, walking on Saturday and leaving on Sunday. 

By Wednesday our bags were packed, and we were all eagerly awaiting the trip. Also Portlanders like us were looking forward to the 80 degree weather that was forecast for Austin and San Antonio.  Perfect! Could things be more perfect? 

Thursday dawned bright and early and we left for the airport late afternoon for the evening flight. We all are sticklers for time in my house, so we managed to clear security and get to the gate, way before actual boarding.

Portland airport is a sight to behold. Lofty wooden ceilings and lush greenery effectively mask the hustle bustle of a typical airport. The food scene in Portland is world renowned and the airport is no exception. So we all went to our favorite places and bought dinner to eat on the plane.

I kept my friends updated on our flight time and finally boarding time rolled in. Except we weren't boarding. The minutes ticked by and I started to fret about the car rental in Austin closing at 1.00 a.m and hoping we would get there before that. And the minutes still swept on and nothing happened. Finally around the time that we should have actually taken off, the announcement came that Alaska Airlines had declared a groundstop. What in the world is a groundstop?

 This is what Google spits out if you search for it:

'A ground stop is a temporary restriction on an airport where air traffic control requires aircraft to remain on the ground at their origin airport to manage traffic flow, often due to severe weather, staffing issues, or other operational problems.'

And that was where we were. They had turned off the monitors at the gate and we were looking at the check in desk at the gate for any sign of hope. The stoic people at the gate gave us updates maybe every hour and it was never good news.

And we sat there and sat there, with every minute slipping by and  with our thoughts slipping ahead to the practical difficulty this threw at us. Checking in at Hertz was going to be a pain. The hotel, I needed to call and let them know we'd be late, but how late? We had no clue. So we were pacing around the gate area, and managed to eat the dinner we'd bought to eat on the plane. And ofcourse the phone for once was heaven sent. There were more updates  to be found online than the gate attendants were willing to give us. We knew the stop was nationwide and there were actually planes sitting on tarmacs all over the country, so we were relatively ok because we were inside the terminal with access to innumerable restrooms and restaurants and space to stretch our legs.

And wait we did. Poor Noe was distraught that we weren't on our way and we had to convince him repeatedly that we will soon be up in the air, though we weren't actually sure of it. Finally, at around 7.30 they said the groundstop had been lifted and we were boarding. Sweet!!

And by 8.00 p.m we were all seated and all that was left was to take off. Austin, here we come!

But 10 minutes later, we had yet another update from the Pilot. He hadn't gotten the final flight plan and had to wait..obviously there was a back log. Fine, whatever, we were seated and like they say, we had nowhere else to go but up, right??  Nope, oh nope, one can never underestimate how much further down one can go in some freaky circumstances. 

And hour later, yet another announcement: No finalized flight plans yet. However there was an escape clause: if you were done with this nonsense, you could deplane and get a full refund for your trip at the ticket counter.  About 30 smart people did walk out the plane at that point. We were obviously not in that gang. 

And we were seated in Economy Premium and had to watch the First Class passengers being offered snacks and drinks while we, the hoi polloi were only allowed to use the restroom. When one guy asked for wine, he was offered water (Jesus in reverse!) and told he could have wine after  takeoff. Another wound in an already hurting wound!!

Around 10.15 p.m the final final announcement: since the groundstop had stretched beyond maximum  allowed working hours for the crew, they had timed out. So whether we had the flight plans finalized or not, we had no crew to take us to Austin.

Damn! Have you felt hopeless and furious and guilty and sleepy and tired all at the same, same time? I have, when I was a new mom, it's called post partum depression, but hey ironically Manny was an hour or so away from turning 25 and here I was feeling way past post partum depression. And I had company. Poor Noe was so unhappy and was almost begging to go and we were convincing him that we would go the next day. We hopped off the plane and with just carry on luggage, we rushed to the gate and were told that the ticket counters had a lot of Alaska employees waiting eagerly and sympathetically to help us and we should rush there.

Rush we did, and the line there was fortunately, was only six people long. But the counter had just two employees helping out. What?? Where's the  bunch of sympathetic people? And as we watched the line started growing amd growing like Jack's beanstalk and was soon about a 100 people long and there were still only two people at the counter. And for some weird reason the passengers ahead of us had,  I don't know what kind of travel plan changes in mind,  it took a good forty five minutes to get through the six of them. By then we were not sure we'd even have seats on the flight the next day and we were almost convincing Noel that we would postpone the trip to maybe March of 2026. And since Vincent and Manny had taken off work anyway, we'd do stuff as a family that weekend. Never mind that an atmosphereic river had been forecast for  Portland for then. See how luck literally follows you and doesn't let go??

Anyway,  we got to the counter and in less than five minutes had our trip rescheduled for the next day and  got out of there. One of the highlights of that day actually. We came out of the airport, caught the shuttle, came to the parking lot, picked up our car and drove back home and stepped into the house at exactly 12.00 a.m October 24th.

And that is how Manny turned 25 in our garage!!

So we ended ( or began, depending on how you look at it) the day, older obviously, that experience aged us massively, but also wiser- we knew a bit of airplane jargon but I would have preferred just reading about it, not living it. But hey, we were home,  safe in bed, boarding passes ready for the flight the next day.  Like Scarlett says, "After all, tomorrow is another day". 

And the tomorrow that came after, was definitely something!

That deserves another post altogther!

 

To Each His Own

This one is a long overdue post and I finally sat down to write it because God knows, next year we might not even celebrate the day like we usually do. Not to sound all gloom and doom, but hey, you do read the news everyday right? Enough said then.

So we have this tradition of bursting fire crackers on the 4th of July and since Manny is a stickler for rules, we don't buy illegal ones.Just the tame boring stuff you get in BiMart or Costco. This has been going on for almost 10 years in this house. While Noe is not an active participant in setting them off, he does sit outside in the driveway and unenthusiastically clap at the lacklustre crackers Manny sets off. He timidly holds the sparklers with his hands as far away as possible from his trunk and he is very wary of the whole process.He is not afraid of fire, this is a kid who uses the cooktop and the oven with ease in the kitchen. I think firecrackers are a completely different story.There is a loss of control when you are letting them off or holding them in your hand. There is no reducing the flame, turning it off option is there?

So for the last few years that has been our routine. Firecrackers from Costco or Bimart, very few bought piecemeal, Manny feeling morally superior, but I'm sure yearning to blast a few of the illegal ones.

So as June rolled around, I went to Costco and looked at the stuff they had. I found a good big package at Costco for a good price and bought it. I didn't bother with the fine print. A good deal is a good deal. I let Manny know that I had left it in the garage and he should check it out.That poor kid, decided that Mom knew best and didn't bother to see what the box beheld. 

So July 4th rolls in and he enthusiastically opens the package in the semi darkness to discover that the entire, the entire package was, get this, poppers...the tame kind which barely has any firepower in them. The look on Manny's face!! He was looking daggers at me and the only retreat I had was the fact that he hadn't checked the package when I had repeatedly asked him to. 

He rushed off to the tent sales at the nearby grocery store and stormed back in because they had wound up the store. He parked himself in the living room and was muttering about his stupidity and my choice of fireworks etc etc.

Where were Dad and the little one you ask? It hit me after mollifying Manny, that the two of them were not around. So I walk around the house looking for them and I find them in the garage, or more like the driveway, blissfully letting off the poppers. Every single one of them. 

Vincent looked amused. Noel was standing there, fearlessly picking up the poppers, one after the other and letting them off. No cowering or backing his butt out and keeping his hands as far away from his body as possible. This was someone enjoying every bit of the experience.Not in this many years had we ever seen this level of participation and enthusiasm. He was blissfully unaware of his brother's frustration and disappointment.He single-handedly finished the package. It took him a good hour to finish it off, but he was positively glowing form the experience.

So we had a kid who was sitting there despondently and another who looked like the cat who got the cream. It was usually the other way around! All, over the same pack of firecrackers. That was a lesson for all of us. What rocks my boat need not rock yours. Disparaging other's choices is unnecessary -unless their choice is a danger to themselves or others or involves negativity.

So do your thing..whatever it is. Have a good time!! Me? I'm buying the exact same package at Costco next year. Hopefully we'll be celebrating what has been celebrated for the last 249 years. Fingers crossed!!