I was excited for our trip to Orlando in April! I hadn't gone anywhere on a plane since February 2020 because of Covid lockdowns, and then the divorce threw a huge wrench into my travel aspirations. So I was definitely ready to do a fun trip with the boys to one of our long-time favorite places. We did the road trip to Iowa last summer, but this was our first solo vacation by airplane together. I did everything myself--booked the flights, the hotel, the tickets, etc. This was a big step for me because in the past the soon-to-be-ex did these things while I handled the packing and household preparations. I had something to prove to myself, and I'm happy to say that I proved it! I can do things that are scary and intimidating to me. I'm finding that they're not that bad once I actually buckle down and do them.
Anyway, on to the vacation!
I don't know how I keep getting getting lucky and dodging these bullets, but I got to travel without having to wear a mask at all, not even once! It was like the good old days! It was a nice surprise because the week before we left, the mask mandate was still in place and had been extended.
But then it was struck down by a very wise judge (in Florida!) the day before we left, so we got to travel in maskless comfort without a single funny look or raised eyebrow or patronizing comment. Thank you judge!
🙌
We flew Spirit because they were the cheapest tickets I could get that gave us a direct flight between Boston and Orlando. It was still very pricey.
We flew out on Tuesday morning, April 19th. Here are me and Sam on the bus to the airport. The beginning of a trip is almost always my favorite!
In the last few weeks he'd started doing this thing where he raised his fourth finger in place of his middle finger. He thought it was great; me, not so much! Although I'll certainly take it over the middle one.
I thought Logan would be pretty crowded because the Boston Marathon had been the day before. There were quite a few marathon runners there with their families, but it wasn't bad at all. It was a piece of cake compared to Orlando's stuffed-to-the-gills airport on the way back!
Here are the bros and I waiting to board. I liked how we all happened to be lined up like this and thought it would be a cute picture to have us all be smiling in a row, but I knew they could care less so I just snapped a quick candid.
Our friends the Fisks were on the same flight as us, which was a fun surprise!
Pre-takeoff selfie with John ✈
John took naps during the flight and I got a kick out of taking pictures of him as he slept. 😆
Out of the goodness of my mother-heart, I finally offered him my neck pillow.
The flight went well, other than one of the kids in the row across from ours throwing up all over the place 🤮. It was wonderful to arrive in sunny, warm Florida, where we hadn't been for three years. I love that state! (As long as I'm not there in the sweltering summer, that is!)
I'm going to jump way ahead and include pictures of our return journey in this post. As I alluded to above, the return trip from Orlando to Boston wasn't the smooth sailing that Boston to Orlando was. We flew out on Sunday morning and got to the airport at around 10:00 and there was already a very long double line at Spirit Airlines. {That's what we get for traveling on the Sabbath!} We waited in that line for close to 90 minutes, and by the time we were through it, it had doubled in length, stretching all the way down the length of the concourse, the longest line I think I've ever seen at an airport! I don't know what the problem was, but I'm so glad we didn't get there any later than we did. Fortunately we had TSA Pre-Check so it didn't take long to go through security, and we made our flight with time to spare.
Sam found Blue at the airport! He must have followed us over from the Velocicoaster! 😁
Here we are back in Boston. These are pictures of us waiting outside Logan for the bus. Home sweet home!
Tomorrow's post will be about our hotel. I have a pretty funny story to tell about it that I can laugh about now but I wasn't too happy about it then!
