“Bing, You’ve Got Mail!” screeched the computer. I was wondering why my Aunt Beth had sent me an e-mail. This really began to puzzle me but I decided I should open it up to solve this conundrum. I realized she had also sent it to my mom and my other aunt, Tracey. I skimmed through the e-mail to see what she wanted or more so what she wanted to offer up. After browsing through the message, her offer seemed more and more enticing. She wanted me, yes me, to come and visit them in Florida..... Plus she needed some extra hands for unpacking in order to move into their newly renovated, enormous house. My Aunt Tracey’s family was also invited to come on down for the special occasion. As if this wasn’t enough of a treat, my aunt said that she could and would pay for everything relating to our flights to Florida.

The time period between the first email and the departure date seemed to take forever. But we finally headed off for our first stop, Salt Lake. I was sad to leave my hometown but the new adventure popped the gloomy thoughts right out of my head. Soon after boarding I faintly heard,“If you would please securely stow your personal items, tighten your seat belt, and fold the tray tables to their upright position, we would greatly appreciate your cooperation. We will have snacks and beverages ready midway through the flight. I hope you enjoy your travels with Delta Airlines.” I was barely listening to the airline attendant as she practically read us our rights of flight. I giggled to myself as I thought of my internal joke. Finally, we reached the Salt Lake Airport….. But we didn’t have time to wander through the crowded halls. We had to get to our next flight within the next 15 minutes; making it more of an adventure, we had to race across the entire airport to get to our boarding gate.
“Now that was fun…..let’s do it again at our next stop!” my cousin Lauren sarcastically commented.
“Lauren…..keep your eyes open for the gate instead of commenting on our arrival and departure times…..hmmmm how about that as an alternative,” my Aunt Tracey suggested.
“Haha…..Lauren got in troooouuuuble,” Tyler, her big brother, stated.
Luckily, we got to the gate with 10 minutes of time to spare. Ugh, this made me angry we could’ve walked and gotten a little something to snack on.
“Ugh…..humph.....how about gettin’ a quick frosty at Wendy’s?” I offered.
“Sounds good…. Dido,” Tyler and Lauren said in unison.
The frosty made me feel a little better but a small grumble in my stomach forced a few airplane cookies into my mouth and down my trachea. Those cookies were kind of sickening. This plane was huge…..there were tons of students and others traveling to Germany; it was a bit intimidating to see all of these people. There just happened to be 4 sectors in this one plane. I couldn’t fall asleep at all so I became a little drowsy from sleep deprivation and a minute-too-much of reading. For your information, I become really sleepy when I read a lot. The end of the flight was nearing and I was becoming more and more eager to get up and stretch; but once we departed from the gate we scurried off to catch the next, short, forty-five minute flight. We barely met the deadline of the boarding session which scared me a tiny bit mostly because the employee at the desk was being a bit uncooperative.
I sarcastically accused my cousin of the occurrence by saying, “Lauren, this is what we get when we tease the time gods…..tisk tisk (as I slide my two index fingers together),”and I giggled thereafter.
Our final flight for the day was a real nail-biter mostly because the occupants (including me) were a little wary about the fact that the “bus with wings” would even take off from the ground. We were blessed once again by taking off safely and more importantly landing safely. My droopy eyes were only revived because my book became more and more intriguing as I read on during this last leg of the airplane flights. This made the whole day of traveling practically fly (giggle) by.
As I happily and swiftly trotted out of the old, crumbling, decrepit plane, I realized something was bothering me. The one thing from the “bus with wings” I had left with was the irritating buzz, like a, “Vmmmmmm…,”, ringing in my ears - probably because I sat next to the jets every flight. After I popped my ears a few times the buzzing faded out, but I realized my baggage still needed to be claimed so I followed my Aunt Tracey, Tyler, Lauren, and Neil to where the personal belongings were being unloaded.

We finally stepped outside of the tiny, three-gate Gainesville Airport. Fifteen minutes later, my Uncle John picked us up in the worn down Navigator. “Sorry, I don’t have much time to show you around n’ chat but I will be home later and a little tour is something I can give you now,” my uncle announced to us. The main reason my Uncle John couldn’t chauffeur us around and leisurely spend his time was because he had to return to the hospital for his regular daily rounds. We did get to chitchat with him later on at dinner where we feasted on some delicious, Mexican food.
It was completely worth a day’s time of traveling to see the ones I love, but only on occasion get to see. And that was my hectic, dramatic, drowsy, hooray-we’re-done day of traveling to the city of Gainesville.