We arrived back in Bristol on Saturday morning, after a long day of traveling and too short a night's sleep.
We left Maryland via BWI Airport on Friday. Our flight to EWR (Newark) was just after 1pm, and our connection to Bristol left just before 9pm. I think there is an art to traveling which has been lost in our modern consumer approach to life - that old devil 'hurry' rides our backs mercilessly given half a chance. And there, but for the grace of God, we went, for our first flight was heavily over-subscribed (it being the first day of Spring Break).
1pm is also Reuben's lunch time, but we wanted to feed him as close to take-off as possible to help him adjust to the changing cabin pressure. The gate-agent began to ask for volunteers to give-up their seats, travel plans permitting, for those passengers who had to catch the 1pm flight. We tsk'd as Reuben grew hungrier, trying to decide whether we should try to board first and stretch him out until take-off. One passenger took up the offer of taking a train to EWR as we continued to wrestle with how best to feed Reuben. The gate agent then repeated the call for volunteers - did I mention that $350 worth of travel vouchers were offered in compensation as well? - and we decided to take up the offer.
The gate agent was so grateful (they got all their confirmed passengers on board in the end) she gave us lunch and dinner money too. Reuben was happy because he ate while they sorted our train tickets out, and Mrs Hope was happy because she didn't have to fly up to EWR. And I love to take the train and see the world from the unique perspective that it offers. It wound its way up the East Coast, taking us through Baltimore, skimming through Delaware and Pennsylvania before dropping us off in New Jersey in plenty of time to catch our Bristol plane.
The hardest thing about the whole affair was giving away our spare meal voucher at EWR - only $12 so not much at all - but hardly anyone wanted to engage in conversation about it.
