The Adventrure Rides on........

Well, my stint as a Cleveland reserve turned into a four-day paid vacation.

It's funny how I quickly fell into a nice routine.

In the morning, wake up and bike over to the bookstore for coffee a read (gotta love a magazine selection that includes Hobby Farms, with glamour shots of pigs and produce), a quick stop at the market for munchies, then off to the airport to chill out in the crew room for four hours.

Each day I was scheduled to deadhead back to EWR, and each day when I called to be released, I felt like I had just anted up in some high-stakes poker game:

I'm here, I'm in. What you got?
Computer keys clicking.
"We're going to need you stay one more night."
JACKPOT!

So back to the hotel for a nice evening bike ride through the park.

I got myself one of those demographic-gathering, key chain-clogging cards for the local grocery store and started sitting in the front seat of the hotel shuttle so the driver and I could catch up better between airport runs.

And actually, I did hit the jackpot, because the whole adventure was pretty profitable. As an Airport Alert I watched movies from the random selection of VHS tapes under the crew room TV (the Truman Show, High Fidelity) and got four hours of pay for four hours of "work". What a concept! Plus, since I was technically away from my base, I was still getting non-taxable per diem and someone else cleaned my room every day!

The only stressful event was when I realized that I had only one knitting project packed...and that I had lost the last page of the pattern! Tragedy was averted when I discovered a Pat Catan's (the Ohio equivalent of Jo-Ann's or AC Moore) on my last night's ride and slipped in at closing to grab a big skein of cotton yarn to keep my fingers busy.

Eventually I did have to fly, so Friday I worked three legs, had a short overnight in Boston and was back in Jersey by 9:30am Saturday.

Since I had some free time, I decided to spend a couple hundred dollars.........

I bought a bike!

Actually, it was only $109 at Target, plus taxes and a snappy little lock chain, and it was worth every penny! I am now the proud owner of a red and white Schwinn Legacy Cruiser. It looks as cute as it sounds, and I look even riding it (wait until I get a little basket!).

Seriously though, riding around Ohio, I realized that most of the places I go in NJ on a regular basis are all within a few miles and it really is possible to bike around.

So yesterday I pedalled to church, over to the Barnes and Noble for coffee and knitting, to my Bally's for a (probably unnecessary) workout and to Peggy's house where we met up for Colleen's farewell BBQ. From there we took the train and walked to the park, so I didn't use my car the entire day!

It really was a perfect summer Sunday.

I got to spend some time with God, good friends, and the more scenic parts of New Jersey. I felt good about the environment and my health, gorged myself on rip watermelon and made it home before the thunderstorm.

Content, but completely exhausted I plopped down on my couch only to hear my phone singing the signature ring for Crew Scheduling.

Since it was my day off, I didn't have to answer, but I knew that it probably meant a "courtesy call" because I would have a VERY early check in the next day.

Cautiously, I answered, and my fears were confirmed: 6:20am report time for a 14 hour duty day. Yuck.

The scheduler apologized and added, "But you have a long downtown layover the next day."
"Oh yeah? Where?"
Computer keys clicking.....

"Cleveland, Ohio."

Do Paralell Universes Use Three-Letter Airport Codes?

Occasionally, while going about my daily business I'll pause and realize that I am thousands of miles away from home, or that just a few hours earlier I had entirely different plans.

Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it frustrates me, but what really surprises me is how unsurprising it is to find myself in such situations.

I guess that's why yesterday's adventures so deeply affected me. I felt like I had not only traveled across state lines, but right through to some other state of mind.

I'll call it Ohio.

Scheduling called me on Monday, just as I was wrapping up a wonderful, if exhausting, four days at home in Annapolis filled with the places, people and activities of my pre-airline life. I was to sit airport alert at 5:30 the next morning.

Somehow I made it to EWR on time and settled into my preferred Airport Alert position: earplugs, eye mask, by body supported in the uneven curves of the Lazy Boy filled in by airplane-issue pillows scrounged from the other couches. Just as I began to drift off the phone rang and my name was called. I was to be deadheaded to CLE (our smallest base) to sit airport alert there.

Now, I slept pretty hard on the deadhead flight (the flight attendant had to physically shake me awake when be landed), but wouldn't I have noticed if we slipped through some time-space continuum?

I sleepily stumbled down the CLE crew room and while I certainly recognized it as our crew room: the same institutional furniture, the same bank of dated computers, their screens glowing with the login page of our company network; everything seemed smaller, cleaner brighter. Like the set for a Disney movie about flight attendants.

Four hours later another girl and I were released to the hotel and on our way out of the crew room we spotted a flier for the "Employee Appreciation Ice Cream Social". They were literately giving away Ben and Jerry's just for working in Cleveland!

En route to the Holiday Inn the driver gave us a detailed summary of all the local amenities and suggested that we borrow bikes and head over to the trails down the streets.

After a solid nap I did just that, and soon found myself on the banks of the Rocky River, legs tingling from the leisurely three-mile ride, borrowed bike leaning against a lovely stone wall. Around me families with fathers picnicked and fished, pets and wildlife frolicked*, and ahead to my right a blissful young couple giggled as they staged kisses for their engagement announcement photos (and snuck real ones between shots).

Later in the evening, completely satisfied from my day and filled with the desire to share my delight with the online world, I biked over the the Border's bookstore to polish off my blog entry.

Journal and decaf coffee in hand (and knitting stashed in the bag under my arm), I decided to take a quick peek at the knitting books before putting pencil to paper. As I turned the corner the shelves parted to reveal a group of women happily knitting away in the comfy chairs by the window.

I stood speechless.

Of course that only lasted a few seconds, and I instantly made four new friends and a standing date to knit any Tuesday I was in town.

We knit, chatted and admired each other's work. Occasionally I would just shake my head in wonder at my day and the other ladies would laugh at how stunned I was by my good fortune. The apparent ringleader of this group (whose husband happened to be a pilot and who she couldn't wait to tell about this flying stranger) commented, "You should buy a lotto ticket before you leave town!"

This morning I woke up to the urgent ring of the hotel phone and the scheduler informed me that I was needed back to for another round of Airport Alert. She also mentioned that they just needed one reserve to stay the night, so she gave me option to stay in Clevland another night or go back to Newark.

Stay another night?!?! I'm ready to put in my transfer!


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* I apologize for the gratuitous use of the term "frolic", but the animals mentioned were in fact illustrating the exact defination of the word.