Good luck makes for good trip

If good luck is measurable, we may have used up all of ours in the final week of 2010.
Early on the day after Christmas, the three of us — my wife Connie, our youngest daughter Sally, and I — set out for a visit with our other two daughters, their husbands, and — most importantly — our new grandchild in Boston.
I’ve traveled enough that I tend not to fret over things I can’t control, but the other two members of our traveling unit started fussing about the weather forecasts Christmas night.
A major storm was taking aim at the Atlantic seaboard. Would it hit us? Would it ground our flights? Would we get to Boston at all?
These questions weren’t just academic. On another Christmas visit to the twins several years ago, we were delayed in getting home because of a similar storm.
But I couldn’t bring myself to get worried about it this time.
The year had been a great one in terms of our immediate family, though it was clouded significantly by the loss of a sister-in-law in a traffic accident last spring. And it had been a wonderful year for reuniting with old friends, both in person and via the Internet. Christmas had been rewarding, and I figured there was no point in worrying when I don’t control the weather.
When we woke up Christmas morning, there’d been another dusting of snow; but the weather was better in the Midwest than in the Northeast. And the big storm was still in the forecasts.
It was all a matter of when it would hit and where we would be when that happened.
As it turned out, luck was smiling on our travel arrangements.
We flew out of Dayton on time and early in the day. Making a connection at Dulles in Washington, D.C., we found that the nor’easter was still in the forecast but the weather was still pretty good.
By the time we took off, the storm was beginning to bear down on the large population centers along the Atlantic.
It made for a rocky flight, the kind where it’s best to imagine it as if you were driving over a lousy stretch of bad asphalt, say Nebo Road in Delaware County before the most recent attempts at repair.
But it also made for a quick flight. The tailwinds from the storm actually got us to Boston earlier than we’d expected.
The storm essentially arrived when we did.
As we schlepped our carryons from the gate to where our son-in-law Josh was waiting for us, we checked out the flight information signs.
“Cancelled.” “See Agent.” “Weather Delay.” Those were the dominant messages.
In fact, over the three-night, four-day visit, the last big blizzard of 2010 didn’t pose much more than an inconvenience. It was noisy, with winds howling for hours. And it was sloppy.
But it was mostly someone else’s headache. We watched the endless news coverage of people stuck at airports — mostly in the New York area — and felt both fortunate and sympathetic.
Our trip back home later in the week went without a single hitch.
So, which made more sense? Worrying? Or not worrying?
Since neither one affected the outcome, I’m inclined to put my money on not worrying. At least as long as my luck holds out.[[In-content Ad]]