A happy end to a long journey

Happy 64th Birthday for Leon.  Once known as Sonny Boy, and Leon, then later as Ponce, when in the Navy, then Dad and now Papa.

We are now well into our journey to Cape Town,  one of the Far Ends of the Earth.  It has been 24 hours since we got up at the hotel and left to catch the airport shuttle.  There are 5 hours to go just to get to Johannesburg, and well over 4 hours after that to get to Cape Town.  Add a few hours after that to get to the hotel in Cape Town and this has been one heckuva long journey.  It was planned as appx. 31 hours of travel.  But that did not include the technical delay at Dulles.  We lost about an hour and a half there to a false engine chip detector fault message.  So far, between the two of us we have watched seven movies, and we still have eight more hours just to get to Johannesburg. 

The airplane has been jam packed.  They don’t call Economy seating “Cattle Class” for nothing.  You really get to know your neighbors well.  Although a few people got off at the intermediate stop in Dakar, Senegal, just as many people got back on to replace those that left.  There is a family behind us with two small children who fortunately are good travelers.  Barb jokingly asked why we weren’t in Business or First.  I told her it was all her fault.  If she hadn’t chosen such a cheap traveling companion, then maybe she wouldn’t be in the back of the bus with him.  But since it is Economy class, perhaps I’m not really cheap, but just economical.  Doesn’t economical sound much classier than cheap?

Okay -when Barb reads this, she say I sound negative.  But I’m not really.  It’s the normal frustrations of traveling  that I am trying to describe.  We live in a wonderful age when traveling can be affordable for many, many people, including us.  We have to put up with being packed in tightly so the airline can make a profit at those prices.  Air travel used to be dangerous and very expensive.  But now it’s incredibly safe, and reasonably priced.  And I feel like I, and all the people I worked with at Boeing helped enable that change.  The affordability of air travel, just like the internet, has changed the world.

So, just imagine little Miss Cheerful-and-Excited going through the terminals with Mr. Grumpy, Grumpy moves at his slow Southern pace.  Miss Cheerful goes into occasional hyperdrive which Grumpy couldn’t have kept up with 20 years ago.  But he tries, cause she’s fun.

Now arrived at Cape Town.  The hotel had champagne waiting for us.  We needed it.  We stuck to our usual routine, which is to “move in”.  That means un-packing what we’re going to use.  The hotel manager is trying to show us the room (at 11:00 pm, and we’re compulsively unpacking).  It helps us feel comfortable in the new, strange place.  This is a wonderful hotel and after 36 hours of total travel time, we need comfort.  We’re on the V&A Waterfront in the Dock House Hotel.  What they didn’t tell us is that Friday night can sound like party central outside.  And South Africans seem to know how to party.  But the Cape Town Boat Show is right here, just out our balcony this weekend.  The last time I retired, we bought a car and spent two months driving home.  This time, Barb is afraid I’ll buy a boat and take two years sailing home.  And they make great boats here in South Africa!