Travels with The Rayman

May  I see the hands of everyone who boards a plane, listens to the Captain speaking, and take it in stride when he or she announces, “Welcome aboard.  This is your Captain speaking.  Our flight to XYZ will be one hour and 37 minutes.  During the flight we expect significant turbulence so please keep your seatbelts fasted”.  

For me, it strikes fear in my heart.  The pulse quickens, the hands get clammy.  Having read articles that assures me of the safety of flight travel, my fear trumps logic and I yearn for my feet to be planted firmly on the ground.  I hate turbulence.  

So, you guessed it.  That is where I am currently.  Attempting to change my thought patterns from  ‘we’re all going to die; to blogging, I open my MacBook and type away because worrying about typos is a lot less stressful.

Seated next to the window,I peer out into that wild blue yonder and what do I see?  The sun, the clouds, and it reassures me.  We haven’t face planted into a mountain side on take-off so that’s good!.  

We are on our way to Portland to dog sit for the kids as they take their own flights tomorrow to San Francisco to connect to their flight that will whisk them all the way to New Zealand.  Lucky kids. I fervently hope they don’t mind turbulence.

Here is Themes, our grand doggiewe will attempt to keep happy!

 

 

 

Meanwhile, our Beau is in Morro Bay staying with his sister, Jaycee.  He doesn’t know it yet, but we will separated for three weeks.  And our grand dogs don’t suspect anything either.  

It really is beautiful flitting atop the clouds. 

in June we are planning a trip to Chicago using the train with a cabin and private bath.  This trip will afford us the opportunity to visit some friends that we met in, get this, New Zealand.  They live somewhere cold  And they have been inviting us to visit for years.  Finally, it is going to happen.  They are 5 hours west of Chicago in Minnesota.  Then after a fun visit, we will head to southern Illinois to visit a Historical Society in Roscoe, Township, IL.  This is very close to where my great great grandmother and father lived in the 1840s before he caught gold fever and announced  his intentions to join a company of wagons that was going to cross the plains in 1849.  

Our trip back to Portland will be taken in a car that we will rent for the overland journey to follow his trip as much as possible from Illinois to CA.  

Which circles me back to our dog sitting because one of the things we will do while taking care of the pouches is to plan the way back.  An atlas, maps from the government that detail historic Trails are in my carry-on.  The National Park Service has printed out maps of the Mormon trail, the Trail of Tears, the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail.  These will come in handy.  

Having embarked upon lots of research, we will visit many monuments and grave markers that mark the the Mormon and California trails.  We will visit more historical societies along the way, and we will view old books from the gold rush years that are located in various libraries along the route.

Maybe I’ll even read passages from books that await me in Vancouver, WA where we will be staying.  These books were written in the early 1800s  by people that made the trip before my great great grandfather, William Henry Dresser did.   I ordered them and the kids picked them up from Powell Books, a famous Portland bookstore.  Yes, I think I will read the dogs some stories from the books.  They might bark and run in circles.  Their hair may stand on end when an exciting tale is recited!  From Tale to Tail.

Back to the plane ride.  We have been lucky.  The clouds are where they belong.  Below us that is.  It is raining below us and I was worried I would not be able to see anything.  I need to see so I can be on high alert for other planes.  Or balloons.  Those Chinese ballots have been in the news lately.  I view it as my responsibility to stay up on things up here.  Timing one’s screams is  may importante.  

With the clouds, it is impossible to see the mountain tops.  Of course, this is good news because I don’t want to see mountain tops up close and personal unless my feet are on terra firma.  

In other news, Rayman is next to me on the aisle.  He seems calm.  That is another thing I monitor while aloft.  If he looks wide-eyed and panicked he will telegraph to me that things are amiss.    

I will close for now before boredom of my dear readers sets in.  I’m mildly confident we will arrive in one piece.  There has been zero turbulence. We are still headed the right direction, so enough is enough.  We’re done here.