A journey of a thousand miles begins with stumbling over the threshold

– Hectic Dad with apologies to Lau Tzu

The past 72 hours have been amazing, stressful, joyous, frightening, delightful, sad, and everything in between. One of my daughters and I drove from central Kansas to eastern Indiana in one day in a car she had owned for 72 hours, but had been in the shop nearly 60 of those 72 getting needed initial repairs.

We spent the night in Richmond, IN literally a half mile from the Ohio border. Then we drove through Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to arrive at the brand new apartment of my oldest daughter. She’d been the leaseholder on the apartment for almost the same amount of time her sister had owned the car…so everything was new, different, and needing to be unpacked.

We didn’t help much in the whirlwind 12 hours that we were there, but we did have a car, so we helped her stock up on food, a bit of furniture, and essential household items that are really hard to transport on public transportation.

After a tear-filled goodbye and tentative plans for another visit in five months, my car-owning daughter and I drove to Boston, when I again had major waterworks as I entered Logan International Airport and she continued to head back to school in Maine.

I made my plane with minutes to spare (a Hectic Dad trademark) and settled in for my flight to Minneapolis and then Wichita. The flight went well, and Delta did a good job. The flight attendant who was traveling in the seat next to me (not working, just flying) deserves a huge shout out for assisting our third seat mate who had a very little time to make her connection. This sweet young woman went out of her way to ensure that this passenger had all the info she needed to make her next flight that was to depart in 20 minutes.

When we arrived at a gate on the F concourse I had no idea how much Minneapolis’ Airport had grown in the fifteen or so years since my last visit. I crossed the entire airport from the far end of Concourse F to the opposite end of Concourse C in under 20 minutes, with no small help of the moving walkways and years of miles logged on our treadmills.

I arrived a bit winded with two minutes until boarding time. I texted several family members with my success at being on-time (not a Hectic Dad trademark) only to see the dreaded “Flight Delayed” message appear. Delta didn’t have a pilot or crew despite having a plane. After an agonizing 1:30 wait to board and another 45 minutes waiting after boarding, we are finally airborne. Right now I’m typing this on my new iPad Air somewhere above Iowa. But don’t fret, my travels aren’t done. After 1,646 miles of driving in 25:38 on the road and now a full day of flying, I’m meeting my older son to drive from Wichita to Pittsburg, KS for a college visit tomorrow morning. I don’t have my map handy, but we’re scheduled to drive for about 3.5 hours, so I’m guessing we’ll put in about 200 miles tonight. Then he’ll visit Pitt State looking at their ROTC program and talk to the track coaches about potentially competing in the Decathlon and/or Hurdles for the Gorillas.

It figures he’s a decathlete…the Hectic Household does everything big! Tomorrow we’ll zoom out about noon to get him back in time for wrestling practice. After winning a really tough high school tournament this past weekend, talking track and chilling on the drive to and from Pitt may be just to his liking. I know his younger brother (who placed 5th at the same tournament) would probably have loved to have joined us.

As I was writing this, it dawned on me that not many people can say that they’ve been to both Pittsburgh, PA and Pittsburg, KS…especially not within a 72 hour period. It’s not that big an accomplishment, but I’m gonna pat myself on the back anyway.

Maybe it’s not quite the trip that Marco Polo took, but it’s a bit more travel than I’m used to packed into such a short time frame!