Flight Day morning

Our luggage is packed and smartly identified by adorable doghouse luggage tags, with a picture of our Bubba, that my friend Elizabeth made us. These things are just too cute! Both girls are up and somewhat ready. Katelyn is so excited that she can't stop spazzing. According to her, "that plane just can't fly fast enough to get me to DC!" Although we have all flown multiple times before, Codah on the other hand, is very somber and fighting back the tears. When asked what was wrong, she denied anything for the first hour she was up. Then she finally admitted that she is "not afraid of flying but why can't we just take a plane to the edge of Georgia and take a car the rest of the way?"

That's a rather odd question from a teenager, especially one who has flown since she was four, has never had any traumatic experiences on planes, and has never before shown a fear of flying. After processing some of her feelings and thoughts with her, we finally determined she has "a fear of plane crashes", doesn't fear one crashing in Georgia "because we're home in Georgia." But if the plane should crash, she'd rather not crash away from home. What a fine time to find out about this!

After some discussion, she finally agreed to talk to Grandpa, "the plane expert" about it. Grandpa's are such wonderful resources! I expected him to give her the typical "planes are safer than cars talk" he used to give me when I was a kid. Instead, he gave her a comparison of total number of flights per year divided by total number of crashes per year equals virtually zilch. Then he went into his "let's stump Codah game" and consoled that if her flight were to crash, it's not going to be like the recent crash on the American/Canadian border where nobody could decide where to bury the survivors. Codah didn't even bat an eye and immediately chuckled her typical "Ohhhhhh Grandpa!" and told him that nobody buries survivors! *LOL* And Grandpa's ever-reliable and predicable response was "Well then, there ya go; what are you afraid of?" She seems to be feeling better now.

Now the immediate concern is whether or not we'll have time for the girls to get a cup of java and bowl of "bread soup" at the Atlanta Bread Company at the airport. I don't care if we were flying at 3am, they'd want to stop in the airport and get "bread soup and coffee." This is a ritual DH unintentionally started years ago; and it just won't die! So for now, we must be going so we will have time for them to splurge on their favorite airport treat before we catch that non-American/Canadian flight from GA to DC. I'll keep y'all posted how it goes.