There’s no smell like an airport bathroom

I’m in Boston. Well, Waltham, Mass., just outside of Boston. I’m here for some training for work for four days. I’m not much of a business traveler. I avoid it when I can. I just don’t like leaving Scott behind and going off on my own. There was a time when I was younger that I loved, craved being alone. But like Robert Redford’s character in “Out of Africa,” being alone has been ruined for me. Ruined by the man I love and who loves me. After 13 years of marriage, we just aren’t the same when we’re apart. God brought us together and that’s the way we do life best.

My journey started when Scott dropped me off at Port Columbus Airport around 4 PM for my flight which was scheduled to leave at 5:40. After a quick early dinner of a Wendy’s single with cheese and catsup only and a bad fountain Coke, I headed through Security. This was my first time bringing a laptop through and it was surprisingly easy. I would have carried all my luggage on the aircraft, but since there’s no liquid substances allowed in the cabin now, I had to check my other bag which contained my contact lens solution, hair spray and toothpaste.

When I got to the gate, the farthest one away, of course (but no match for the farthest gate in the Northwest terminal at Detroit Metro), I checked the monitors and found that my flight had been delayed an hour. Someone said it was due to bad weather in Boston, but I later found out that it was due to Boston doing work on a runway so places to land were more limited than normal. So I got out my book and prepared to read for a while. We ended up leaving only about 20 minutes late, which was nice. I didn’t want to get in too late.

In flight, I read most of the way. I sat next to a college-age girl who resisted putting her iPod away when asked and couldn’t decide if she wanted her sweatshirt on or off. I had a window seat (there were only three seats across in this little plane, and only 14 rows of seats), so I watched Columbus fade away as we took off and looked down on the clouds from time to time. I love the sky. At one point I saw the strangest rainbow – it was somehow projected onto the clouds below me and was in the shape of a doughnut with the red on the outside and the purple on the inside of the loop. It went away when we hit a break in the clouds, but I was glad I saw it.

The ride was a little bumpy, probably because the plane was so small, but overall the flight was fine. We landed and by 8-ish I was getting my bag. I’m always happy when I see my forest green roller bag on the conveyor belt. After I got my bag I went out to the Avis shuttle to go to the office. I had already been missing Scott and being home and then they played “Time in a Bottle” in the shuttle and I found myself getting misty.

By 8:30 I was in my rental car, a blue Ford Taurus, having promised to fill up the tank before I brought it back, and trying not to get lost in the dark following a detour instead of my printed out directions. Finally I made it to the hotel after three tolls and only one wrong turn. Tomorrow, I will hopefully make it to class by 9 after my free breakfast at the hotel.