Here's how it works. The military has to transport cargo and personnel between bases, and they have a fleet of old school military planes they use to do it. If there is space left over ("space available") on any of those planes, then they offer it to members of military and retirees and their families.
Here are the catches. None of the flights are announced until 72 hours (at most) ahead of time. Even when a flight is posted the odds of that flight actually leaving when it says it will leave, and going to the place it is originally intended to go to is about a 50/50. A couple hours before the flight there is a "Role Call" for the seats on the plane. This is when the seats are given to people who have signed-up according to their Category and their date of sign-up. This means that you have to show up at the terminal with bags packed, ready to board the plane before you even know if you will be allowed to go on that flight.
But it's free. So it's totally worth a shot, right?
This is the story of my journey to MO home with the kids. It's going to be a long blog. It was a long journey. I'm going to break it into subheadings because that's how we traveled. In subheadings. I was only going to allow myself to be stressed over one part at a time. At the end of each section I'll describe what Dan was doing at roughly the same time.
Catching the Flight
The earliest I was going to begin to look for flights was Wednesday the 18th, which happens to be Joslyn's 1st birthday. Lo and Behold, a flight to Forbes Field in Topeka, KS appeared on the schedule for around 9pm that night. Perfect! This means the kids will sleep the entire trip. Topeka is quite a drive from MO, but it's an awful lot closer than Hawaii. There were 35 seats open, so our odds looked great!
Wednesday, April 18, 4pm: Birthday Cake for Joslyn! Flight to Forbes Field, KS delayed until Thursday, April 19, 10am.
Thursday, April 19, 6am: Flight to Forbes Field, KS delayed until 5pm.
Thursday, April 19, 8pm: Kids and I were selected for the flight (woohoo!) Bags checked, ready to go through security and board the plane. Flight to Forbes Field, KS delayed until Friday, April 20, 5am. We go get our bags back and drive home. We set our alarms for 3am.
Friday, April 20, 3am: Flight to Forbes Field, KS delayed until Friday, April 20, 10am.
Friday, April 20, 6am: Flight to Forbes Field, KS delayed until Saturday, April 21, 9am.
Friday, April 20, 2pm: We begin to think that Forbes Field, KS does not exist. I notice a flight to Jackson Int'l, Mississippi at 9pm tonight. This would be perfect timing for the kids . . . I wonder how much tickets are from Jackson to any place where I know anyone.
Friday, April 20, 9pm: We arrive again at the terminal with bags packed, and tickets on hold to fly from Jackson to Dallas, TX (where my sister lives). We are selected for the flight, along with every person who was also selected for the Forbes Field flight 2 days ago. We begin to check our bags when they announce that the flight is not going to Jackson Int'l Airport, but rather Jackson Int'l Reserve Base which is 30 minutes from the airport and has no available services or amenities. We (all the passengers for the flight) all look at each other. We decided that we are all in this together, and we would figure this out. There were people offering to take cabs to get rental cars to transport everyone in small numbers to the airport. There were people calling loved ones to call bus companies to meet us there when we landed. Everyone was calling someone.
Friday, April 20, 11:45pm: We take off for Jackson Int'l Reserve Base, Mississippi. No one on board knows how they are going to get from the base to the airport. In a strange and comforting way, no one was worried.
- At this point Dan was watching to see that our plane actually took off. Then he was texting me the numbers of cab companies in Jackson, Mississippi so that I could call them as soon as I landed. He was sending Facebook messages to family members so that they knew we were actually coming this time. He was looking up flights from Jackson to Dallas to see if there were any more options for us if our flight was early or late. He was wonderful.
I think it was a C-5. It was huge. It had a big hatch opening in the back where they can drive Humvees, tanks and helicopters inside. In fact, it was large enough that you could fit 2 Humvees side by side, and still have room for the seats on the sides. We were in fold-down seats (think director's chair) on the sides of the plane, everyone facing the center. They were really much more comfortable than they sound. This pic is the closest to the interior as I could find. They would NOT let us take pictures on board. The only difference (besides the pimped out limos) is that this plane appears to have some form of insulation on the walls. Ours did not. We could see cables, wires and gears throughout the interior. It was metal 365 degrees around us. It was awesome.
When one of the pilots said that we were able to move around I unfastened my seatbelt to take Axel to change his pull-up. When we came out of the bathroom there were sleeping bags and large blankets covering the large, open floor. There was even a man who plugged in a self-inflating air mattress. Everyone was settling in for the night.
Then they pulled out their hats and gloves and coats. Oh, dear. When they told me it can get cold I decided to put the kids in long sleeved jammies. They meant cold. Like, bundle up for winter cold. Joslyn was wearing every bit of clothing I had packed for her, and she was bundled up tight in her blanket in her car seat. Axel wanted to sleep on the floor, so I cuddled up next to him to keep him from shivering. One of the pilots was kind enough to locate a couple wool blankets for us.
Other than the sub-arctic conditions it was a really fun way to travel. There were lots of kids, and Axel and I even stood up and played catch for a while. We walked around and looked out the small window on the door at the Rocky Mountains when we passed them. We sat on the floor and put stickers on our faces and watched Wizard of Oz (because the plane was too loud to hear it). Did I mention they handed out ear plugs when we got on board? It was kinda loud. Something about the no insulation . . .
When we began our descent I got a little queasy. I look over at Axel who is white as a sheet. He's thrown up on a swing at the park before. This was not going to go well. 10 seconds later he was covered in puke, and we still hadn't landed. I'm cleaning him as best as I can with us both in our seats. When we land I have about one minute to change his clothes and clean him up before I figure out how we're going to get to the airport.
He was a trooper. He didn't notice the puke all over him because he was really excited that the nice pilot said we were about to get onto a shuttle bus. "Ride School Bus More?? Ride School Bus More??"
- Dan was at home. Sleeping. In a real bed.
Jackson Int'l to Jackson Int'l
It turns out we were all worried for nothing. The incredibly kind men at the Jackson Int'l Reserve Base did not want to leave us stranded so they just kept driving our shuttle bus from the cargo plane all the way to the Jackson Int'l Airport, about 20 minutes away. We love them.
This was the only point on the entire trip that I didn't think I could handle it. If Dan had been there this would not have happened. It would have occurred to Dan that if you pack 3 people for 3 weeks into one ginormous suitcase you would run the risk of it being overweight. This did not occur to me. Dan would know what to do. What would Dan do? He would dump things that we could replace. It would be much cheaper to replace them than to pay $100 extra dollars. I was sure he would not want me to spend $100. Into the trash goes the bbq sauce I had made for my dad's birthday. Into the trash went a full bottle of baby wash, as well as body wash. I weight the bag. 3 more pounds to go. Into the carry-on goes a couple pair of shoes and the baby monitors. I weigh the bag. 50.0 lbs. I'm not kidding in the least when I say that I shouted "Yes!" in the middle of the terminal and thrust both of my hands into the air in a victory celebration. I had won. I can do this.
I now handed the not-so-kind ticket counter man Axel's puky car seat. I didn't want him to sit in it for the last flight, and it's the airline's policy that they will not charge for checked car seats. On some level I believe that God allowed Axel to get sick on that flight, just so that I could have this moment. This moment of satisfaction from handing over a puky car seat to a man who should have known better than to be impatient with a woman who was traveling with 2 babies. A better person would have used that opportunity to be kind to someone who was probably having a rough day himself. I shamelessly took great satisfaction in it.
We arrive at our gate in enough time for the kids to have crawl races through an empty area of the airport. This was one of the best parts of the trip. They were having a ball and laughing loudly. I so love them.
- Dan booked our ticket as soon as I told him we had landed. He even got us on an earlier flight that was less full so that we were sure to have an actual seat for Joslyn. Then he got into a cab and headed to the airport where he flew commercially all the way to the mainland with free soda and peanuts served to him. He had headphones instead of ear plugs and insulation and carpet instead of a metal floor. He landed in Dallas (coincidentally) and hung out in a La-Z-Boy at the USO for a couple hours with free food and ESPN until his connecting flight to San Antonio arrived. He then had time to get in a quick round of golf while he waited for his private, King Bed hotel room at the Hilton to be ready for him to check-in. He got to bed a little later than he wanted to that night.
It is not easy to adjust a 1 and 2 year old after a 5 hour chunk of time vanishes from their lives. They went to bed at 10pm on Saturday night (their normal 5pm) and they slept until noon the next day. I'll spare you the math. That's 14 hours. They are somewhere between Hawaii Time and Central Time now. We're just going with it.
I spent time at my sister's new home. I bought my kids hot fudge sundaes at 10pm at McDonald's on our drive up to Carthage. They have played with Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins until they can no longer stand up straight. They LOVE being home with family. I do, too. It was totally, completely worth it.
- Dan remains at the Hilton. We're pretty sure he'd rather be with us at this point, but at least there's lots of golf in San Antonio to keep him busy between conference sessions.
