Dec 10th: In the Air Again

I can hardly believe that it has been ten days already. Although perhaps Grandpa and Grandma can. At any rate, after much discussion and listening to weather forecasts and dire predictions, we have decided to leave at about 4:00 am (our flight leaves LAX at 12:50, but it may take 6 hours to negotiate traffic, hopefully not, but we're leaving early - just in case.) Of the two routes we could take back we have opted to avoid Walker Pass as the they are forecasting freezing temperatures and black ice for that area and instead have opted to take the canyon road down to Bakersfield. The main concern there is the thick fog that settles over the area, making it nearly impossible to see and very difficult to drive. This morning the California Highway Patrol shut down sections of the freeway and escorted groups of traffic through, a little at a time. That could add some serious delay to our travel time, but at least we miss the black ice. We've set the rooster alarm for 3:oo and are going to try to get some sleep now.

So, we woke up at 2:00, well Bayan woke up at 2:00. Mehran and I had really only been dozing. Especially Mehran, whose plan to go to bed early backfired when he couldn't fall asleep. I guess we were both worried that we the alarm wouldn't go off, or that we wouldn't hear the alarm, that we'd sleep late, get caught in rush hour traffic, miss the flight...you know how it goes. So, when the rooster crowed (quite literally) at 3:00 we were already up and eating breakfast. We were out the door by 3:45 (15 minutes ahead of schedule, ahead people, ahead). We said our good-byes to Grandma and Grandpa, happy in the knowledge that we would be seeing them again soon before heading back to Australia, said some prayers and headed west on route 178 still hoping to avoid black ice and fog. We made good time until we hit the canyon, the twisty, narrow road, without a single safety rail to stand between you and a thousand foot fall through shadowy darkness to a rocky, raging river below, made us both a little uneasy and we were constantly pulling over to let other drivers zip past us as they sped at alarming rates down the canyon. Pulling over was really a two-fold operation as it gave Anisa a temporary pause from the winding motion of the car as well as multiple opportunities to throw up which she was never able to do, despite the dramatic, nauseated moans coming from the back seat. Ruhi, on the other hand, (with no warning at all) managed a most impressive vomit only moments before we were about to return the rent-a car.

Before we even hit Bakersfield, almost as soon as we were free of the canyon we drove straight into a cloud. The fog we had hoped to avoid was waiting to meet us at the base of the foothills. We inched along slowly unable to see much of anything at all, including the road and other vehicles. Thank heavens for the GPS, it gave us direction when there was no way to see. Despite hitting serious traffic near Santa Clarita around 6:00 we still managed to get to the airport by 8:00. By 9:00 we were checked in and ready to go. That was for fortunate because there were major delays with airplanes headed towards New York, and we were in time to switch to an earlier flight which wound up leaving (after sitting on the runway, waiting for clearance for well over an hour) at almost the same time that our original flight was scheduled to take off.

Anisa and Ruhi spent much of the flight, munching on snacks and watching movies. While Bayan played with his train, repeatedly sang The Wonder Pets theme song at the top of his lungs and flung, knocked and spilled all manner of beverages. The only one unscathed was Anisa who sat on the opposite side of the plane, Mehran got it worst enduring total crotch saturation only one and a half hours into a six hour flight.

By the time we arrived in New York his pants were still chilly and moist and had a most undignified splotch across the front section, but between his hassles with the children and the baggage, he was way past caring. We paid a King's ransom for a slice of airport pizza, a few potato wedges and a bottle of water and sat down to be entertained by the departure screen as it sporadically posted the changes to all the delayed flights (of which ours was one, naturally.)

Out of the blue, after we'd been waiting for about an hour, Mehran turned to me and asked : "Is it going to be one of those propeller planes?" In reply I quickly scoffed: "Honey, they don't make those anymore." Imagine my surprise when (45 minutes later) what should appear in the window (well, actually below the window, as it was too small to be seen from the waiting area, unless you were actually looking down at it) but a tiny little aircraft with a propeller attached to each wing. Ahem. On the bright side, it turned out to be about a 50 minute flight as opposed to the 1 1/2 hour flight it stated on the itinerary. The children, despite being extremely exhausted, did really well and were (except for Anisa who fell asleep moments after take off) able to walk off the plane in Portland. They rallied quickly, helped with the bags and greatly enjoyed the shuttle service to the hotel. They will see Grammy and Uncle Michael tomorrow. For now, we sleep.