I’ve just returned from one of the longest 4-day weekends I’ve had in a long time. Usually, they go by so fast and you wonder where the time went, but this one was different.
On Thursday night, I flew up to meet my family in Montana. Emily was the only one that knew I was coming Thursday night. Everyone else figured I wouldn’t be there until sometime Friday afternoon. Anissa was still awake when I arrived, so she knew when I walked by her room to mine. Chris had fallen asleep in the rocking chair in the living room and I went in to wake him up and tell him to go into his room. It only partially registered that it was me and he went downstairs to go back to sleep. The next morning he would ask me if he was dreaming that I woke him up. I joked with him I had no idea what he was talking about and kept that going for a little while before telling him he wasn’t dreaming.
The next morning, Hannah came in to turn on the light and grab her school bag. I could hear her gasp through my sleepy haze and opened my eyes to see her standing there with her hands over a gaping mouth with wide eyes. She was surprised. She came over and gave me a huge hug and started crying. I think of all the kids, she’s the one that this has been hardest for.
I thought that a full four days without full use of the internet would be hard, but it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated (except for the nearly 400 emails I have to go through). The only time I really got online was to send an NCOER to one of my Soldiers and to look up some geocaches at a park where we would go for a family hike. I was able allowed to send some periodic Facebook updates through my phone. Turns out, actually, that Facebook makes a great alarm clock if your status comments are linked to an SMS account. On Saturday, Emily left me a bunch of Facebook comments on my wall, each one sending an audible text alert to my phone. After about the fifth one, I was wondering what was going on and noticed Emily sitting at her laptop giggling!!
On Saturday, we went to Red Lodge, MT and then up to the Beartooth Pass. The Pass is a beautiful and scenic view of southern Montana/Northern Wyoming mountains. There are tons of wildlife and it feels like you can see forever when you get to the top. Last time we were up there, we could make out some Bighorn Sheep on the ridge across the valley, but the only thing we saw this time were a bunch of chipmunks and a dead moose that looked like it had been recently hit by a passing vehicle. I don’t remember seeing it on the way up.
After the trip, Emily and I went out on a date to Texas Roadhouse. You can take the CJ out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the CJ. Actually, I just like going there because I like throwing peanuts on the floor and not getting yelled at for it.
Sunday, we went to church. It was the highlight of my Memorial Day weekend. I had asked Emily’s dad to find out if there were any organizations placing flags at a veteran’s cemetery that we could participate in, but I forgot that we had scheduled Anissa’s 14th birthday party for that day. Normally, I’d feel bad for not doing something related to Memorial Day to honor the holiday, but considering the circumstances of our separation, I didn’t mind terribly that we didn’t get to do anything. Next year.
On Monday, we took the kids and another family we met at church with us to a park near the Billings Temple. The park is located right at the base of the rims and features a number of trails that are good for hiking and – it turned out – geocaching. The furthest cache was about .75 miles from where we parked at the crow flies, but after all the off-trail walking and up and down hills to retrieve caches, we figured we probably walked/hiked a total of about three miles. Doesn’t seem like much, but quite a feat when you consider we were toting a 14-year old, 12-year old, 8-year old, 2-year old, and baby with a stroller. We found all eight caches in the park and headed back to the car. We had a family lunch at Subway and headed back home. Then, things took a turn for the worse.
I took this picture of the Billings, MT Temple as we were walking back to our van after geocaching.
Emily had written down on the calendar that I was supposed to leave at 4:30, but I had looked on my phone to see what time my flight left. I saw 1755 as a departure time and she figured that she wrote down 1630 as the time we needed to be at the airport. Turns out that Emily was right (aren’t they always?). We got to the airport at 1638 only to realize that we missed our flight by eight minutes (actually 28 minutes since you can’t in any later than 20 minutes prior to scheduled departure according to FAA regulations).
Trying to get a flight out of Billings at the end of a long weekend and on Memorial Day is near impossible. There were no more flights between Billings and Austin where I left my car. I HAD to be back at home NLT 0800 because my household goods are arriving tomorrow and I have to be here to sign for them or get charged for a missed delivery (NOT CHEAP!!).
Adam, Lisa and Kate of Frontier and Horizon Airlines worked their tails off to figure out a way to get me a flight out. They worked closely with United and their guest services office to figure something out. It took over an hour of fevered phone calls and furious tapping away at the booking program on the computers. It was like watching a shell game.
Frontier Airlines has made a new customer if I can ever help it. The treatment and customer service from this airline is such as I’ve never experienced before. At every step of this journey (I’m now in Vegas), they have gone out of their way for me. On the flight from Denver to here, I even got a courtesy DirectTV connection to my seat when the flight attendant found out I was in the Army. Another flight attendant gave me my own can of Diet Dr. Pepper while most people only got a cup of their drink of choice. I’m not just saying they were great because I got a lot of perks, but the manner in which I observed them treat other passengers was just as professional and impressive.
I’m scheduled to land in Dallas around 5am. My uncle drove up tonight to stay with a cousin of ours and will take me home in the morning in time for my household shipment – I hope! The next challenge will be figuring out how to get my car back from Austin!!
