The Travel To... Part I

Well, here is the story of our journey from the beginning. I promise to try and make it entertaining… as entertaining as 38 hours of travel can be. The bulk of the group left from a Johnson State College parking lot on Wednesday, May 18th, at 3 pm. This was the place to be: a swanky school van, beautiful early summer weather, and a send off like unto those days of glory when competing for the high school wrestling championship. Staff and administration from the College sent us off with waves, shouts, and signs like “You rock!” and “Thank you!” and “Try to come back!”

The trip to the airport was pleasantly uneventful, thanks to the capable driving hands of our Director, Ellen Hill. We made it on time and met up with the remaining members of the group, sans one. Check in and boarding was uneventful (this was due perhaps to impressing our fellow flyers-in-wait by peeling and eating whole cloves of garlic. This is an unwritten part of our group health regimen, to keep away mosquitoes, but like any good idea, has served us beyond the original intent).

The first leg, to Newark, was quick and pleasant. Small plane, 45 minutes. Upon arrival, we hastened to eat some fine fast food, American style, at the airport “for the last time”. This notion got stretched throughout the next 23 hours, as we were served eggs, chicken, fish, mashed potatoes, noodle soup, chocolate muffins, rolls, or fruit every couple of hours and couldn’t manage to say “no” on account of the “last meal” mentality. Needless to say, we didn’t dip into our independent treat bag. Oh wait, we did. We simply ate a lot on the way over.

I digress. In Newark we dined and then used various means to kill the 5 additional hours in the airport. We also met up with the final participant, Chris Anderson. After reassuring his mom, sister, and girlfriend that he was safe with us and indeed, would have air conditioning in Vietnam, we were able to pry him away for check in. The rest of the group followed, and soon enough (12:30 am), we found ourselves in for the first long stretch to Seattle.
In Seattle, the bleary-eyed travelers wandered off the plane in different states of discomfort. You see, the airlines had begun the trickery of trying to change your body’s time zones by light depravation and force feeding. So, in pitch dark for the first couple of hours, we were startled awake by being roused for “dinner” at 3 in the morning. As explained above, we ate. So eating, plus immobility, plus sleep depravation hurt us as people. We used our short (1 hour) layover in Seattle to recover by walking around, doing yoga, and playing reflex based card games. Then, on to Taipei!