Only cause my wife asked me to

Hello everyone. Adam here. I thought I'd fill in with some comic relief and a little more explanation of the less obvious parts of our trip. The only problem is, I'm not all that funny.

Let's start with the very beginning of our trip, a simple flight from Tampa to Atlanta. This a no brainer. You hop on a plane, sit for an hour and a half, get some peanuts and a soda, do a couple of "Easy" crosswords and word searches (because I can't solve anything harder), and arrive in Atlanta to prepare for the difficult flight. Easier said than done. About the time we get our peanuts and soda, we hear this really loud, weird noise. I thought nothing of it, I mean planes normally make loud, weird noises, don't they? Lori had caught a glimpse of the steward and stewardess though, and was sure that they hadn't heard that noise before because of the looks on their faces. I reassured her, and our new friend, a woman who was traveling to Atlanta on business that everything was fine. Our new friend doesn't like flying all that much, which doesn't make her all that much different from Lori. After the pilot informs us of a failure in the hydraulic system, she starts to wig a little bit. He reassured us that there was nothing to be alarmed about, and we still had 2 fully functional systems. 2 out of 3 ain't bad, right?

I wasn't worried at all, that is until we started our "final descent". I didn't realize how final this descent almost was. I have flown to Atlanta dozens of times and am familiar with the landscape around us when we land. Well, after several minutes, I never see what I expect. After we start to circle the same area for about the 3rd time, I start to get nervous. I am trying to stay calm for Lori and our friend, but I know something is truly wrong. The looks on the other passengers' faces only solidifies my fear. No one is calm. The stewardesses are nowhere to be seen, and we never get another announcement until we get on the ground. When we land, everyone applauds and cheers, this is when Lori STARTS to cry, after we are safe??? That "minor" hydraulic failure we weren't supposed to worry about had caused malfunctioning of our landing gear and ability to steer it. Who knows how they finally got the landing gear out. I pictured some guy down there kicking at it to try to deploy it. And the circling was to line us up just so, cause there was no steering us out of trouble. Alright, who's ready to board another plane now? Not me!

Well after that ordeal, it couldn't get any worse right? WRONG! All that circling made us over 45 minutes late getting to the gate. We had roughly an hour before our connector to Moscow left. These flights typically board 45 minutes early. Our plane has landed at the T Gates, and we need to get to the E Gates. It is 5,000 feet between these two gates, about a mile. No problem, we hop on the mass transit trains and poof, we're there in 5 minutes. So we're waiting in line to get on, and I hear over the loud speaker, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience, but the trains have been temporarily shut down."

Great. I look up to the countdown clock, though and it says we only have 2:15 until the next train. No problem. After sitting there for several seconds, I look back up and it now says we have 2:29 until the next train. Obviously, there is a problem. We don't have time to wait around so Lori, prepare to run a mile in record time in order to make our plane. As we take off, I hear a lady standing nearby protesting aloud how there is no way she can run a mile. Sorry lady, we can't piggyback you. We are both carrying loaded backpacks, mine weighing only about 60 POUNDS!! We are both wearing brand new boots too, mind you, and they certainly haven't been broken in yet. Off we go. It is roughly 1000 feet between each gate. We stop and look as we arrive at each gate, in hopes that the system is back up. No luck, the clock is still counting up. Several minutes later, we are sweating profusely, out of breath, and limping from the new bruises and blisters formed in our new boots. And to get a nice slap in the face, we spot that lady getting off the train right before we arrive there. Oh well, we make it for the final boarding call and are off to Moscow! WOO HOO!!!!

Stay tuned for the my next issue: Death by BO.