We made it! We’re in the same time zone as many of our family and friends! No mental math before calling 🙂 Here’s the story of our amazing adventure flying to NJ on a military plane. We had such a great time…

Sun morning we flew out on a KC-10 to McGuire AFB. Until the last minutes before boarding it was still tentative whether or not they’d have seats for us. Such is space-a travel. After all the prep and packing and wondering, I was sure happy we did get on the plane. No pictures allowed on the flight line, so I’ll have to Google for a shot of the plane. Its primary mission is refueling other planes, although it can accept fuel inflight as well which is unusual. The boom operator was on board, so it was interesting to hear her talk about the delicacy of the operation (two planes fly in parallel, one on top of the other and just ahead while a boom is lowerd to deliver the fuel).

The flight was a 9 hr flight, which by my reckoning is quite a good deal. It would have been 12 hrs on a nonstop commercial flight. The crew had been in HI for Pres. Bush’s stopover, and were eager to get home. When we boarded the plane, one of the guys spotted Sam’s Mets backpack (from Uncle Richie and Aunt Diane) and was like “Yeah! A Mets fan!” and handing him a crew patch from his shoulder. Sam loved this – held onto it for the whole flight and studied it. They flew light…and FAST! That plane rocks. It took off like a shot, even though it’s DC-10 size. Sam was a real hit with the crew and fellow space-a passengers. He wore his earplugs much of the time (didn’t think that would happen!), talked with me and the crew, got a visit to the cockpit, and even went poop on the plane! (We’re still working on final potty training, so you can imagine how fast I flew to the toilet when I heard the first hint of maybe having to poop – I was out of the seat with him unbuckled like a shot. The other passengers knew what was up 🙂 ). As the trip wore on, I got a chance to talk to various crew members. One pilot (there were 4 aboard) – Capt Kellie – was really nice. I told her Sam and I planned to put the crew patch Sammy received on our seabag and collect them as we trot around the globe over the next however many years. Dave has not fully approved this notion, but it will grow on him with time 🙂 Anyway, Capt Kellie loved the idea of collecting patches and putting them on the seabag, so she ripped hers right off her shoulder and soon Sam had two more, for a total of 4 patches!! That was so nice of the crew – they actually have to go and buy more from the uniform store.

We got in around midnight NJ time, and Dad had us home in a flash. He was waiting at the terminal for me. I had called just before boarding with our plane’s call sign and he did a great job tracking us, even getting to see us land. Marilou and Dad made our welcome so easy – we just slide right into some dessert, bathtime and bedtime. Sam was in bed within an hour of arriving at their house, which was, interestingly, precisely his normal bedtime even though it was 2am in NJ. We slept uneventfully for about 4 hrs when he was awakened by a big puke in his bed. I guess he must have eaten too much that day – too many snacks? I have no idea. I was up, like a shot, again. Cleaned him (and me) all up, lay down on the floor with him on a towel for a bit to see if this was going to be an every-15-min sorta thing or not. Eventually I put him back in bed and he slept another 6 hrs or so, waking up around noon.

Sam got to play with all the cool toys here, while Dad and I went to McGuire to check into getting me a car and also my paperwork for the return space-a flight in early Oct. You have to be registered with them – and that’s good for 60 days. SO the trick is to “age” your reg such that you are toward the end of your window and thus are ranked higher than others in your category for flight. Tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s no big deal. We got me a car for less than $30 a day – somehow when my credit card went through, the bill ended up being over $180 cheaper than expected. Wow! Must be the mom traveling with toddler alone discount. Nice blessing that was! So I have wheels for a month, under budget. Funny thing, though – the car is an automatic. I had a little trouble figuring out the gear – I ended up in “M” which made the car whine like crazy (high RPM for 20 mph). I finally figured out how to get it in “D,” which made things a lot easier. Just gimme a stick shift!

Then Dad and I took Sam on some adventures – first to see where Dad works at the sporting goods store. Then we had the idea to check out some tractors at the John Deere distributor. We made it here 6 min before closing and this nice guy, Jose, showed us around the big tractors. At the end of the tour we asked if we could buy a replica and the parts guy in back actually GAVE it to us! We will go back by with something from Hawaii this week. Such nice people!