In retrospect, referring to our holiday as our Great Griswaldian Adventure in the weeks and months leading up to it may have been a less than inspired choice, if for no other reason than feeling like it’s poking fate in the eye and waiting for a reaction.
Caroline and I were up until after midnight the day before the trip, making sure that we would have everything that we would need and that it had been compressed into suitably small shapes so as to allow us to board a plane.
The day of depature, Michael and Sam had their indoor soccer finals and the original plan had been to go straight from the soccer to the airport where we’d abandon the car for a couple of weeks. When I looked at the luggage that needed to go in the car it was readily apparent that one car stuffed to overflowing simply wasn’t a good answer, not to mention the fact that the last minute panic meant that we weren’t all ready to go at the same time.
So two cars it was to soccer, with Michael and Sam both coming away with Gold medals after their respective games. Following that, it was a dash to the house, loading everything into the car to the point of imminent explosion and off to the airport. I dropped Caroline, the kids and the luggage off at the door and was about to go park the car when Caroline asked me where my hand luggage was.
Oh crap.
The instant she asked me, it flashed through my mind. In order to pack the luggage in the car I’d moved my car out of the garage. When I’d packed everything else, I put my hand luggage down on the ground. Because the garage was full of mud from the snow, I put it on one of the few clean spots. To get Caroline’s car out I had to move mine back in, which meant that my luggage was now right in front of my car. In fact, it was basically underneath the front. We all piled in the car and left, sans my hand luggage.
My instant reaction was to flee home to get it, but we were close enough to boarding that I didn’t think I’d have time. I gave it up and went to park the car.
Urgent calls to the one person that had access to our house went unanswered.
When I came back from parking the car, Caroline told me there’d been a slight delay and that I may have time. I fled the airport, mind whirling, eyes on my watch and doing the arithmetic. If I sped the whole way home and back again, I might make it just in time IF they took 10 minutes to board and I could get in at the last second. A bad run of lights, getting booked for speeding, or simply having to park a little too far away would potentially mean missing the flight.
I stopped, turned around and returned to the terminal, where Emily unfurled herself from her mother’s arms to give me a big hug. She’d been terrified that Daddy might not make it on the plane.
Normally missing my hand luggage wouldn’t mean a lot. No book to read, no iPod for the journey, possibly even missing a snack I’d packed. On this occasion however, I’d happened to pack the bag with all the charges for our cameras as well as the video camera in my backpack instead of the luggage.
As we flew to LA, we considered our options. We’d get some photos, but would probably exhaust batteries fairly quickly and we’d have no video. Our first point of call out of LA was intended to be the Grand Canyon. Surely that wouldn’t put too great a strain on the cameras! Yeah, right.
Option 1 was try and find a retailer that would sell us new battery chargers for the cameras. Likely to be expensive.
Option 2 was to have Nancy go to our house, retrieve the bag and courier it to us. If we went down that path, it would also be expensive and involve a change of plans so that we could be in a location where we could receive mail.
We settled on option 2, forked out the requisite arm and leg and changed our plans to head straight to Vegas from LA rather than the Grand Canyon.
And with that happy little start, our vacation was underway!
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