Perhaps the biggest, nee, greatest decision one can make when planning a family trip is which
mode of transportation to take to your desired destination. Others might argue that the destination
itself is the most important decision, but I would have to disagree. Indeed, you could choose the most wonderful
vacation location and ruin your vacation before it even starts by selecting the
wrong vehicle by which to travel.
Believe me…I know. I have taken
them all.
In my opinion, planes are the worst form of holiday travel. Maybe it's just me.....
I hate airports. They
involve airplanes. And I really hate airplanes. Well, not to look at, but if it involves me
getting in one, I hate them! And most
people hate when I am on one with them.
So, I would say, this automatically takes air travel out of the running
for me and my family.
If I am honest, it isn’t actually the airplanes that I hate,
or even flying in them. It is the idea
of crashing that I dread. My mother
always tells me, “Jill, if it is your time to go, it is your time to go. You can’t change it.” This may be true, but if I never set foot in
an airplane, my ‘time to go’ won’t include falling 30,000 feet out of the
sky. Yet, even I know there are times
when air travel is the only way to meet your journey’s end. If the flight was all I had to contend with,
the right medications is all it would take.
But, before I ever set foot on the airplane, I have to contend with the
airport itself. And that is where it all
breaks down.
It may be an easy feat for most people to get to the
airport. Not for me. My trip to the airport includes my husband,
five children and me, who is usually ready to throw up thinking about boarding
the plane. Taking this many children
with me, of course, means I have an hour less to get ready to get out of the
house and make our flight, because that is how much extra time you have to add
to your schedule when it includes catching, wrestling, hog-tying, and shoe-tying two squirrely little boys! If I can get all that done,
cram the luggage in the car and buckle everyone up without forgetting anyone…I
have EARNED my vacation!
When deciding whether to travel by plane, there is an important fact to remember: You have to go to the airport. One of the last times I went to the airport, I didn't even get on the plane, but I needed a massage when I got home! And I don't mean some little-back-rub-by-one-of-the-kids. I mean a Broadmoor or BUST massage! Soothing music, quiet, relaxing. A real massage. Why? If you need to ask that, you have never been to the Denver International Airport.
Given my extreme distaste for air travel, there is no love lost between me and DIA. If it had just been the airport, that would have been bad enough. But the whole escapade to, from and at the airport made it a hundred times worse. And I wasn't even the one traveling! I was just dropping off two of my girls, Butterfly and Jef.
Besides going to a place that I hate, there was an added measure of "fun" that day. We had high wind advisories. And with tha,t we had an extremely heavy migration of tumbleweeds. I thought those things were only in Arizona and bad western movies...or on my friend, Shannon's dinner plate. I don't know why, but when Shannon told me she eats tumbleweed, I thought it was so odd. Once you see them on the highway and hit several of them, however, they do appear to be vegetative roadkill. The way they run across the highway and jump at your windshield, trying wildly to get into your car, really makes them seem as though they are alive. Like they are a vicious thing to be hunted! At some points near Denver International Airport, where the winds were really picking up, the herds of tumbleweeds were so thick, I couldn't see the road. There was no swerving...I just had to run them over and keep going. I hope someone called animal control.
As I neared the exit for the airport, the tumbleweeds, thankfully, dissipated and I had a sense that the worst was over. Alas, I should have known better. How could I think I would have an easy go of things at an airport that looks like a giant circus tent, guarded by a three story, rearing, blue horse with glowing orange eyes? What was I thinking?
My husband, Big Kahuna, told me that morning that I should park in the short term parking. Two dollars more an hour, but you are "right in and right out" he said. At this point in my post, I find the need to write a letter. Bear with me...
Dear City of Denver and Airport Sign Making and Posting Personnel,
I would like to apply for a job as a sign maker and sign poster for your airport. It is clear that you need no college experience because...well, it is clear you do not need a brain. I certainly am overqualified in that case, as I do have a brain and mine works, but perhaps you will consider me for the job anyway.
Sincerely,
Jill Yuen
If you were putting up a sign for parking, wouldn't you include directions for ALL parking? And if you put up signs for parking, wouldn't you make sure ALL your parking options were listed on the signs before a fork in the road? Before leading others to think there is only one parking exit option? I would. I definitely would. I wouldn't make people look at one sign for parking and ask them to make the assumption that there is only one parking exit and then list another parking option on another sign way past the first parking exit option. A sign that cannot be seen from the first parking sign that leads them to believe this is the only parking sign and only parking exit option. Nope, I wouldn't do it that way. But DIA apparently does do it that way. But, I didn't know that....SO...
I took the only exit you can see when parking options are listed. Silly me, I didn't know you had to progress to "Arrivals" to see on that sign that there is ANOTHER parking option. I got the little ticket and traveled past the completely packed Economy Lot and began looking for the Short Term Parking my husband had told me to look for. My daughter, Junior, who had recently been to the airport with her dad, confirmed that, indeed, I was going the right way. (Short note here....in our family, you are either a Lichty/my side of the family or a Yuen/Kahuna's side of the family. Which gene pool you swim in is determined by your sense of direction. For example, Butterfly is a Yuen: she couldn't find her way out of a paper bag. She takes after her dad, Kahuna, whom we affectionately call WW for Wrong Way Yuen. On the other hand, Jef could get you from Colorado to California without a map...she is a Lichty. Unfortunately, Junior's gene preference had not been made known to us before this trip...but let me tell you most assuredly, she is a YUEN!) I began to hope against hope that even though all the signs for the garage said FULL, there would be someone leaving. I drove and drove and drove. Thousands of cars and no one was leaving! I drove and drove and drove some more. Somehow, I navigated myself out of the garage, but I realized there was no Short Term Parking here and I was going to have to go through the exit and pay to get out of this section of the airport and resume my search elsewhere. I called Kahuna, who told me to just tell the exit operators that I made a mistake (understatement) and just let me out so I can go to Short Term Parking, which my husband added, is actually gotten to by taking the "Arrivals" exit. But, I was concentrating so hard on what he was telling me on the phone and marveling at the fact that there was another parking option, but it wasn't on the Parking sign that I made a wrong turn and ended up in a an "Authorized Vehicle Only" area!! At this point I was stuck behind an automatic gate that only automatically opened if you were authorized, which I was not. Oh yeah, and there was a bus behind me. I was now reduced to pushing the red button that matched the shade of my face color on the gate call box and tell them, "Hi. I am applying for job here at the airport as a sign maker and sign poster and to prove that I have no brain so I can get the job, I am now stuck where I do not belong with a bus blocking me." After 30 seconds of hysterical laughter between the gate operator and the bus driver, the bus finally backed up and so did I. I decided my husband's idea of telling the exit gate operators I made a mistake and just needed to go to Short Term Parking was my only option. When I got to the exit booth and explained it all to the lady, she said it was fine, and to take the "Arrivals" exit (seriously, if everyone is willing to tell you to take the "Arrivals" exit, why don't they just write it on the stupid Parking sign??!)....and that she had to charge me for my joy ride through the parking garage. I hate the airport.
So, I paid my money and got back around to approaching the airport. I finally took the "Arrivals" exit and found Short Term Parking very easily. Parked, piled the kids and baggage out of the car and proceeded to the terminal.
By that point, I had to use the bathroom so badly, I left Butterfly and Jef to check in on their own. But nothing about that day was easy. Especially because I was at the airport. With all of my kids. Of course, the boys had to go to the bathroom, too. Junior and I took them with us. I chose to take Lizard Boy, because usually he is the easier of the two boys for me to manage and I didn't want to have an accident and wet my pants while dealing with Spidey. Lizard Boy, however, had to go as badly as I did...a fact he did not tell me until we were in the bathroom. Excruciating, that's what it was. And that is all I have to say about that.
Once I made it out of the bathroom, the older girls were all checked in and ready to say good-bye and head down to security. We hugged. We kissed. We waved good-bye. The three younger kids and I stood upstairs, watching the girls make their way to security. I wanted to keep an eye on them because the younger of the two girls had no ID and I wanted to make sure it wasn't an issue. She got right through. Ahhh, at last, something easy.
Or so I thought.
After my daughters got halfway undressed and went through the metal detectors, a security guard directed them to an "agent designated special security area". Oh no. Now what? They were talking to my daughter that did not have ID. The daughter who hates confrontation, and sometimes even just conversation! The guard seemed nice enough, but it was obvious there was some sort of issue and the girls remained detained. The guard monkeyed around with my kid's stuff some more and then sent them both on their way. The girls turned and waved and blew kisses with giant smiles on their faces. I was yelling, "What happened?!" over and over, but they just smiled and disappeared in the tunnel to the departure gates.
Later, the girls called me as they were boarding the plane. They told me they were detained because Jef had a pocket knife given to her by her Christian youth leaders in her bag!! I think after my foray into the "Authorized Vehicles Only" section of the parking lot and Jef's weapon stash they heightened the security advisory to red (SEVERE).
I am pretty sure they won't let my car back on airport property. Even to pick up my knife-wielding delinquent minor. Which ought to be interesting because both Butterfly and I are flying to California in a couple of months. So who wants to take us? Just let me know. And remember....
Take the "Arrivals" exit.
Gotta Mosey!
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