Connecting All The Way To Disconnect

OH, SWEET JESUS, I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY DID IT. 

Our traveling companions arrived more or less on schedule, but it was a schedule that appears to have been designed by the travel agency of the Marquis de Sade…on a bad day…when his feet hurt.

The “Cousins from Alaska” were coming to Ireland for the first time trusting us and our judgment as to the best way to get from Anchorage, Alaska to Dublin, Ireland without going mad.

No matter how you slice it if you live in Alaska going anywhere takes some serious planning.

For them to get to Dublin their itinerary read something like this: Fly from Anchorage to Seattle. Just about all flights from Anchorage go through Seattle. A layover in Seattle of several hours. Then fly from Seattle to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Several hour layover in Minneapolis. The next leg was the biggie. They then boarded an Aer Lingus plane for the trip nonstop to Dublin overnight. They landed in Dublin at 8:45 AM local time. This made for an amassed time change of NINE HOURS. Their internal alarm clocks must have been screaming by this time.

They Look Familiar. We Must Be Related

THERE ARE ONLY TWO TIMES when families get together en masse – weddings and funerals. Nobody got married this week. After the departed is laid to rest everyone gathers together and tells stories. They also try to figure out who are those little ones who have grown so tall since the last gathering.

There are always new babies to look at and questions asked about anyone who isn’t there. There is also someone trying to explain how and who is related to whom.

“Hiram over there is your third Cousin, twice removed, and married to Lulubelle who is actually the sister in-law to your Aunt Fedora Mae. Got it?”

“But who is that man sitting over there by the potato chips?”

“I don’t know. I thought he came with you.”