This past weekend, my parents and I headed out to Salt Lake City to place my Grandfather's ashes in his niche, next to my Grandmother. My dear, dear Father booked our tickets to fly out on the 6:30 a.m. flight which translates to a Grumpy Rebecca getting up at 3:30 a.m. I calmly informed him many times before Saturday that this was a bit early for me and that I was going to hit the Starbucks as soon as we made it through security.
Friday evening as I finished packing my bag, I heard some swearing from the next room where my Dad was printing out our boarding passes. I sensed that this wasn't a good sign and darted into the room to ask him what was wrong. It appears that my Dad booked our flight to leave on FRIDAY morning instead of SATURDAY morning. I told him to call the airline and then to tell Mom about the situation. He rebooked our tickets but instead of flying direct, we now needed to fly through Reno which put us into town a bit later than planned. So that debacle was taken care of and now we have something to torment my Father about for the next two thousand years.
Saturday morning arrived (and I use that term loosely) and we headed to the airport. We arrived at our gate with 40 minutes to spare and used that time to watch people run to the other gates and leaping onto planes with seconds to spare. One scene which provided us with hours of conversation was the gate people announcing the final, final boarding call and telling the wife of a very late couple that she needed to either get on the plane without her husband or rebook her flight along with him. She decided to get on the plane. A full five minutes later, the husband comes strolling up and is irate that the plane is leaving without him. He calls his wife and there was some hand gesturing and the gate lady telling him that she needed to rebook his flight. Ohhh boy!
So then we get on our flight and are told that we are going to wait for a few people since the security line was so bad (it wasn't bad when we went though but then my family is all about the preparing ahead). This lady gets on with her child and says something about not knowing where her husband is. A few minutes later she gets off the plane with her child and the flight attendant is telling her that they can't wait for her husband. Seems like husbands and wives were getting separated at the airport!
We connected through Reno (not sure I ever need to go back there) and arrived in Salt Lake City.
I'm always amazed at how well kept up Salt Lake City is. Their roads are wide, their gutters cleaned and they don't seem to have the plethora of potholes that plague Seattle. As my father put it, "Salt Lake is well scrubbed" and my mother added that it made you want to be a better person.
We headed out to the cemetery and had my Grandfather’s ashes interred in his niche next to my Grandmother. The cemetery is lovely and he has a wonderful view of the rockies.
After the internment we spend the rest of the day driving around Salt Lake City so my parent’s could trot down memory lane. I asked if we could head down to Temple Square and so we did. We arrived near dusk and the light was just beautiful.
The square was awash with people and the space in front of the temple was covered with brides and their families taking pictures.
Saturday evening we had a fantastic dinner before heading back to our hotel to collapse in a heap.
Sunday was spent visiting family relatives before heading home to Seattle. We spent some more time driving around the city and heading down Old Mill Canyon.
We arrived at the airport and made it through security though I was pulled aside for a bag check. It appears that my telephoto lens and camera charger were bundled up together and it looked, "suspicious". Of course this meant my Mother beat me through security. Darn it!
We arrived at our gate and sat down to await our flight. Everywhere around us were people wearing Xango shirts in bright orange. It looked a bit like a massive cult descending upon us. We soon found out from listening in that all of these people had been to SLC to learn how to sell Xango ala Tupperwear Party style.
So with this interesting people watching opportunity, we boarded our flight which instead of heading directly to Seattle, was making a pit stop in Spokane.
As we headed to Spokane, our pilot announced that we were 20 minutes early which meant we would have 40 minutes to sit on the plane before taking off for Seattle. I wasn’t sure that this was worth announcing but the pilot was quite pleased with himself.
I could see the lights of Spokane below us and then my parents and I noticed that the same lights appeared to be beneath us again. My Dad muttered that we were circling the airport and wondered if this was due to us being early.
Shortly thereafter the pilot announces that we are having a malfunctioning light on the dashboard and that was why we were circling. I decided to ignore this information and not freak out.
My parents decided to mull this over and my Dad then made sure that my Mom and I were aware that the problem was probably related to the landing gear. My Mom announced that her death certificate was not to list, Spokane before pointing out the emergency exit rows to me.
My Dad told me to step over the slow people because, "Politeness is for dead people."
This made me giggle and I told him I was quoting him on the blog. Pretty soon we were all giggling and my Dad was pointing out that not being polite was only reserved for adverse conditions.
Eventually we landed in Spokane and took off toward Seattle. Unfortunately we hit some turbulence over the Cascades which made my stomach lurch around. We eventually arrived home and I again collapsed into bed. It was quite difficult to get up this morning for work but I do have Thanksgiving off so I’m looking forward to that!
Of course, it does sound like Lolly had it a bit rougher on her return home so I shouldn't complain too much.
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