Too Cold, Too Soon; I'm outta here!!

   

     I swear I don't remember ever having snow on my birthday or bone chilling temps, but this year I did...We were flirting with a record low, 10 degrees, yikes!!   So I decided the best birthday present I could give myself was a trip down south.

     With my birthday being close to the holidays a flight would be almost impossible, and the plane ticket it's self would practically put me into bankruptcy.  But come February, when the rest of Ohio is saying "how much longer until spring??", I can have that belated birthday present to look forward to.

     My cousin Keith and his wife live in Fort Myers Florida, and for quite some time I've been saying I should go down and visit them "someday".  Well, as we all know, "someday" never happens, so I had to make it happen.

     The day before my birthday, It was freezing outside, and as I was at work, warm and cozy indoors, I got on the computer and booked my flight.  Now "someday" was gonna happen.

     I haven't flown in over 5 years and a lot of changes have happened in that time.  This is certainly going to be a true test of my survival skills.  I'll be flying for the first time by myself and I'm nervous, yet excited at the same time.  

     My flight will be direct, the two airports are small and the planes are puddle jumpers, so this should be a great place to start.  I've been leery of the long haul across a huge airport with a million hangers and connecting flights.   With all of my bionic parts and questionable paraphernalia, the security screening could be a real circus act.  But if and when I make it through security at this junior airport I will hopefully be home free (that, or I may be asking Keith to bail me out of some Turkish prison...). 

      As an added birthday present to myself I paid extra to select my seats in advance.  Now I no longer have the fear of being sandwiched between two shady people spilling over into my "middle" seat, in the very back of the plane. I'm going to be in a seat close to the front and comfortably on the isle of a two seat row. That piece of mind was worth every penny spent.

     The only down fall to this February trip is the warning I got from Keith when I told him my tickets were purchased.  He told me that back in January, 2010, when they moved there, a friend drove down with them to help with the move.  The day his friend left to come up north it was 70 degrees as he boarded the plane.  When he arrived in Ohio it was a mere 3 degrees and the TSA practically had to use the jaws of life to pry him out of the plane:)  I'll take my chances!

     I've done several things out side of my comfort zone as I've gotten older, and this trip is just one more challenge to add to the list.  My cousin did tell me we would be very busy while I'm down there.  Now, I'm not sure if that meant he was putting me to work or if we were doing some exciting/scary things during my stay.  I really don't want to know because no advance warning means the less time I have to talk myself out of it.

     Who knows, after I conquer this challenge I might finally be ready to move on to the big girl airports:)

Have a great day!!

Christine:)