If you are just getting here, I suggest you scroll down a bit and read part one.

I Have Always Depended Upon The Kindness Of Strangers

This portion of our trip begins what I lovingly refer to as the “Blanche Dubois” part of the trip completely with hysterics, histrionics, and of course, the signature depending on strangers bit. The next morning I woke Chris up and sent him to the hotel to figure out what was going on. I instructed him that until he got some serious service he hadn’t yelled loud enough. This is one of the reasons why Chris deals with most customer service issues. I tend to be ready to rip somebody a new one (yes, I’m picking up crude air force sayings) and Chris tends to remain calm. He returned about a half an hour later with Beky, a very kind, slightly chubby woman with hair in wisps like a baby. She apologized profusely for the night clerk’s idiocy, and since it was a holiday and the shuttle service wasn’t running, and we had been so badly mistreated last night, she offered to drive us to breakfast and wherever else we needed to go.

We grabbed “breakfast” at a sport’s bar. I had a very good taco salad. I was happy to find that Ohio people are quite friendly. People smile at you and say hi when you walk by. They don’t do that in California. Well, I do, and people always look at me as if they’ve just seen an alien. After checking out our options we decided to take the next flight out to Scott AFB, on the border of Illinois and Missouri. We figured that even if they didn’t have something headed toward North Dakota, we could rent a car or hop on a bus to home because it is only about twelve hours to Fargo. We had Beky drive us to the base airport where we found the doors locked. Beky pounded on the door and Herb appeared and informed us that because of the holiday the airport was only open for about an hour before each flight left. He was nice enough to let us in to use the phone. Since we had no place to go and no transportation and it was cold outside and the flight didn’t leave until ten pm, I called the local LDS missionaries and asked for the number of the local Relief Society president. I phoned her, explained our situation, and she arranged for us to go spend the day at one of her counselor’s homes. All we had to do was wait at Billeting and her counselor would pick us up. So we did.

In Which I Try Very Hard Not To Breathe Lest I Besmirch The Cleanliness

She picked us up and took us to her lovely home. As she opened the garage door, I knew we were in trouble. The garage was immaculate. Quite literally there were only two pretty white shelves with neatly stacked boxes. No mess at all. That’s just unnatural. She led us inside to a pristine living room filled with lovely, expensive breakables and decorated in white. She gave us a quick tour of the house and each room we entered was equally as beautiful and breakable and clean. I peeked in the office and saw her scrapbooking things on a card table; even the half finished page was orderly.

They had no children. And we have two. Two drooling, pooping, running, climbing, muddy and destructive little beings who should never be taken into a place as lovely as this for an extended period of time. Chris and I took turns taking Jonas to play at the park down the street in the freezing cold weather and breathed a sigh of relief when, at last he took a long nap. The couple was very kind. They didn’t seem worried at all about our rambunctious three year old, made us a lovely dinner and even dropped us off at the airport in time for our flight. We were very fortunate to have their help.

Suddenly, I Am Confronted With A Fear Of Flying

We boarded our next plane, a little Leer Jet with only seven seats. We had two nice pilots, Ashley and Jared, both men. Ashley got us situated in our seats then sat down and gave us a few helpful hints for the flight. The instruction that really caught my attention is when he told us that if we heard him say, “AGRESS! AGRESS!” We should follow him to the safest exit and he would lead us out.

“Out where, exactly?” I asked. I thought it was a legitimate question. This isn’t like a hotel where you get led out to the parking lot. There’s no parking lot in the sky to deplane into. Out is simply out. Mid-air doesn’t qualify as a destination point.

“Just out.” Apparently, that’s all I get to know. If we catch fire, we will go out. Comforting, no? In all honesty, if given the choice between exploding in mid-air and jumping to my death, I think I’m going to go with exploding. It’s faster, and I see no reason to drag that event out.

The pilots headed into the cockpit where I could see them getting ready to go. In this exceptionally small plane, I discovered that I am actually a bit afraid of flying. You always hear of people dying in small aircrafts like this one. Buddy Holly, John Denver, Patsy Cline, Jim Croce, Lynard Skynard, Glenn Miller and Stevie Ray Vaughn to name a few. Thus we see, people who can sing die in small plane crashes, and I can not only carry a tune, but have done time in a few show choirs. This means I am absolutely in the “At Risk” category.

On a larger plane, as far as I’m concerned, I’m merely sitting in a crowded theater showing a bad movie with concessions that come to me. On a little jet like this, it’s the real thing. I can see out both windows and actually read half of the glowing gages in front of the pilots. I offered a quick prayer as the bitty plane careened down the runway. At liftoff I reconsidered, decided that something a lot more penitent and heartfelt was probably in order to sufficiently motivate God to notice a weenie little jet dangling precariously in His great blue sky. I prayed a better prayer, then turned my attention back to my book, blatantly ignoring the fact that I was flying and could die at any second- which was hard to do given the fact that the jet’s wings were being bathed in flashing red light, which is kind of a universal signal for WARNING WARNING!

As we finally touched down in Illinois, the plane wobbled, swayed and gave such a shudder that I can honestly say I’ve experienced the sensation of going weak in the knees from fear. I’m only glad I was sitting down at the time.

*Part Three Coming Soon!