Even More Travel Tales

Hello,



My carry on is too large for the small plane that we were getting on so the woman at the gate said, “Just put it by that door.” As a man climbed into view she added, “Oh good, just give it to him. He will stow it for you and you pick it up at the end.” I am used to that so she did not have to tell me, but that is fine that she covers all the instructions because she has no idea who knows and who does not.



All I had now was my long grabber thing, coat, and smallish back pack. Leroy’s back pack is quite a bit larger, but it still goes inside the small plane. He was also toting his coat plus a small bag that he puts under the seat. We were assigned seats in the first row. Almost all of the overhead bins were full. The flight attendant did a small amount of searching before she said, “I will just take your things up here with me.”



She took Leroy’s larger backpack and my grabber thing out of sight. I was sitting by the window where I put my coat next to the wall. Leroy sat on his coat, while we both almost tucked our smaller bags under the seat, or at least in back of our legs. Not really what they want but we all ignored it. One more person got on before we were settled and sat behind us. The plane was full and we took off for the short flight to Cedar Rapids. The fasten seat belt light never went off so Leroy did not go to the restroom. I was incredibly grateful that he, with the stronger holding power, had this issue and not me. As soon as we landed and the door was open, Leroy strode ahead gathered our stuff, suggested where we would meet, and almost loped away.



I had to stay at the end of the jet way to collect my bag. When we met, Leroy let me watch the stuff while he checked on the bus schedule. Yeah! It was coming in about fifteen minutes. We stayed in the building because of not wanting to stand outside in the cold, plus we could see the road where the bus would come and we had plenty of time to go outside to the proper spot before the bus would reach it.



As we were gazing out Leroy saw a woman from the congregation get out of a car. He dashed out to say hello, while I came at a slower pace, gathering things. Getting there we learned that she was dropping her husband off. She graciously offered us a ride. Since we know where she lives we accepted. She drives fairly close to our house on her way home.



From the conversation of the flight attendant and a passenger we learned that the plane we were on was going to make a return trip to Minneapolis. In the car we learned that our driver’s husband was taking that plane. Somehow it all seems so serendipitous!



Paula