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This post is a continuation of a previous post.
Please start with that if you need some background information.

I’m done with all the pictures – now I have some stories about the trip to Idaho.

Cart Wheels

I will relay one incident on the flight over. We were sitting peacefully, nibbling on some pretzels and watching people. The airplane was not huge – there were three seats on each side of the one aisle. A lady, probably in her late 70s, was making her way back to her seat and was a few rows in front of us, facing away from us. The airplane wasn’t getting ready to land, but it was going through a bit of a descent, and we heard “Look out!” from behind us.

If that ever happens to you, make sure you turn to look without leaning your head into the aisle. Because the warning was to let us know a beverage cart – a metal, heavily-laden cart – was freely rolling down the aisle. As it passed me, I put out my hand and foot to slow it down, as did the guy in front of me. It ended up stopping a couple rows before the row where the lady was standing.

If the cart hadn’t stopped before reaching the lady, I think the cart would have won that confrontation.

It’s Not a Cookie

If you have a young child, do not opt for the “cookie” that they offer as the complimentary snack on the plane. It is a thinly-disguised teething biscuit. As many parents know, teething biscuits are just dried paste. Sure they taste fine, but the child’s saliva turns the biscuit into a goo that gets on any surface near the child. I was trying to clean biscuit paste off my shirt for the rest of the flight. Go for the pretzels instead.

And I know I could have titled this section “Snacks on a Plane” but I already used that heading in a picture post.

During the Flight

Beta: “What are clouds made of? Are they made of fluff?”

How could I tell him they weren’t?

I couldn’t. But I may have said something about fluff being made of water vapor.

One Side of a Conversation

Overheard on the way to Boise, during the flight:
“This is the plane that Captain Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River.”
(garble garble from the other person)
“No, not the actual plane, just the same model.”

Solid, Liquid, or Gel

We inadvertently found a way to stump the TSA. As a general rule, you are not allowed to bring liquids onto the plane. Liquids are not allowed, but solids are.

My wife likes cold water, so she stuck a water bottle in the freezer the night before the flight, and it was still frozen when we went through security. The TSA lady saw that bottle (since we had it with the other liquids to help keep them cold) and said she had to test it since it was more than 3 oz. When she picked it up and saw it was not liquid, she didn’t know what to do. She conferred with some other TSA people, then she walked off with our bottle. She came back a few minutes later and said it was good.

Oh, and yogurt counts as a liquid. In case you were wondering. Or maybe it’s a gel. Either way, they don’t like it.

Sharing

Our hosts were very nice. The daughter relinquished her room for the few days we were there, and all five of us stayed in that one room. Apparently they grow houses a bit bigger over there. Gamma stayed in a pack-n-play, which our hosts borrowed from their neighbors. The morning of our departure, we stripped the sheets off the beds, packed up the pack-n-play, and tried to restore things to how they were before we arrived.

I was thankful that we did not have to return the pack-n-play to the neighbors because they’re a little weird. Friendly people, and gracious to let us borrow their stuff, but weird. Phone first before stopping by their house.