Travelin' Blues

Today Brian and I made our annual holiday trek to Maryland to spend Christmas with my family. Christmas with my family is always super fun - really anything with my family is always a good time - so we don't mind making the trip, but today was a rather trying travel day. It was by no means the worst holiday travel experience we've ever had, but it wasn't the best either. Mostly I just wasn't expecting things to be as chaotic as the were.

We flew out of Orlando, which is a 1.5 - 2 hour drive - I allowed for 2 hours, since it's the holidays AND Friday, and I scheduled us to leave so that we would be at the airport 2 hours before our flight. The point to adding in all the extra travel time wasn't because I thought things were going to be crazy, but because I didn't want us to feel rushed and stressed out. Well, it was a bit crazy. Traffic was heavy, the airport was insane, I was hungry so I was getting grouchy. It seemed like no one had planned for it to be that busy - like all the airport and airline employees forgot it was Christmas. Everyone was being pleasant, though, which was nice. If people had started getting ugly, I might have come unhinged. Between the line at the Southwest counter and the line at security, we barely had enough time to get some sandwiches that weren't McDonald's and get to our gate. We arrived at our gate just as our flight was beginning to board. The flight took off with no problems, our luggage made it to Baltimore, and my brother picked us up at the airport. I ate on the plane and felt much better, and Brian still thinks being married to me is a good thing. We are here with family and everything is good again. Like I said, not the worst travel experience, but not the best.