Time for Takeoff: Having a Nice Flight

On April 1st, Patrick and I zipped up our suitcases, hit the road in the very early morning hours, and arrived at Santa Barbara Airport for the first time in 15 months. I’ve never been more excited to wake up at 4 a.m. My suitcase was literally dusty when I fished it out of our basement to pack. As avid travelers, we usually have the pre-travel-steps down, but both of us went up to the bag counter and then had to dig around for our driver’s licenses, sort through emails for the flight confirmation number, and make way-too-chipper small talk with the woman at the United check-in counter. We had a moment of Wait, how do we do this again? I guess when I dusted off my bag, I also needed to dust off my travel rustiness too.

We wore our masks, of course, and waited to board our first flight out of SBA. There were people milling about and grabbing coffee and it felt almost normal. When we boarded the flight, there was a couple with a young child in front of us. As we waited in line to step on the plane, the little boy kept looking around and pointing at everything. He asked, “Mom, what does this button do? Dad, what’s that? Why is this over here?” The parents shrugged and repeated that they weren’t sure. We laughed and smiled and they apologized, “I’m sorry — this is really like his first time flying since it’s been so long and he probably doesn’t remember his first flight.” Patrick…