The Eagle has almost landed!

Despite the universe's best effort to foil our departure to South America, we are almost, almost there. I just woke up with a smile on my face after a good 5 hours of sleep on our 10 hour journey out of Dallas. Earlier today we left ABQ finally around 2:30 on our newly re-routed adventure on American Airlines instead of Delta . As we made our approach over Dallas, the pilot came on to say that the weather had "deteriorated in Dallas" and that we were going to be in a "holding pattern over the airport" until either the weather cleared or we would have to divert to a different airport. Of course! After about 20 minutes of  hovering, he announced we were going in and "flight attendants immediately take their seats". This could only mean one thing- it would be a bumpy ride into the "deterioration" and a roller coaster ride it was. I think I held my breath for 20 minutes hanging on to H's hand as tight as I could!We made it to Dallas in spite of a nasty rain storm, waited 4 hours and took off to Santiago, Chile. Can I just say that flying is just NOT what it use to be! We managed to get bulk head seats "without a charge".. Say what? They charge for exit row seats now? Huh? The fact is: American Airlines has gone 3rd world on us since the last time I flew it. Let's see, was it the filthy as hell floors? The disgustingly dirty meal trays, the grumpiest flight attendants I have ever encountered?  Or perhaps the way the sound blasted over the earphones enough to make me more deaf than I already am. But then again there was the CARTOON they showed as a "movie" and the scowl I got from the main flight attendent when I asked politely if I could have a cup of hot water... Said steward knocked against me hard as he was flying by me with the meal cart with no apology. He also served me cold food and had the personality of a turnip..However in spite of it all- I do have a South American smile on my face this AM. I suppose I should have a heart..I think American is filing bankruptcy so I would be a grumpy employee to!

.I am having mixed feelings about landing in Santiago, Chile. The last time I was here was almost 10 years ago to the day. H and I had gone to Chile for a 2 week holiday vacation. H still worked as an attorney, I was in a demanding graduate school program so it was a much needed break. We were suppose to go to Argentina back then but there was some sort of uprising in Buenos Aires, with riots in the street. At the last minute, we changed our trip plans. Rioting in the streets was not the adventure we were looking for. I had scrounded up enough flight miles to fly business class to Chile. We knew nothing about the country but thought it would be fun just to "wing it" through the trip, staying at hotels whenever and wherever we felt like stopping . ( I would regret this decision later and we have never left home without an itenerary since)-seemed like a good idea at the time! We rented a car (stick shift so I was driving), and took off down the coast. The first 4 days were a blast! We found this new "vagabond experience" was indeed very cool! We could not speak a lick of Spanish and so it was a real challenge to communicate. We finally found a B&B that was owned by Americans and breathed a sigh of relief that we could actually chat a bit with strangers. After leaving there we headed to a small town on the coast, who's name escapes me. Maybe it will come back to me at some point on this trip. One night I had a terrible nightmare-H had to wake me up as I was screaming. It un-nerved me. Something did not feel right. The following night, another nightmare only I made H stand up and hold me until I calmed down. The next morning I turned to H and said "something's wrong, I can feel it". So off we went to find an Internet cafe in this little community in Chile, where no one spoke a lick of English. This was in the "olden days" where you did not have Smart Phones or IPads to hook up and check in. Instead we were in a tiny little cubby hole in a hole in the wall, trying to check email..the first message I saw was the subject line "MOM CALL HOME-IT IS AN EMERGENCY!!" my body felt the panic first. We started to try and guess-one of the kids?? H's mom?? Did the dogs die? No they would not say EMERGENCY for a damn dog! Would they?? We started calling everybody we knew..I was in an almost full blown panic attack. Even though the staff and the patrons of the cafe did not understand any English, they got that we were in a crisis situation. It was Sunday morning in the States, no one was home or answering phones. It took us a good 2 hours to finally reach our daughter, Heather who told me my oldest sister, Sara had died suddenly. She was diagnosed with M.S. two years prior at age 50. I knew she had been pretty sick off and on but the severity of her illness was unknown to many of us family members. She contracted Spinal Meningitis one day as a result of some drastic treatment they were giving her for the MS. She was dead less than 48 hours later, maybe less. I was in a complete state of shock. Somehow we managed to get ourselves back to Santiago and fly home. I remember the seat I was in, I remember wanting it all to be a bad dream and when would I wake up? I wanted to continue on with our trip to make it go away. All crazy thoughts of a traumatizing event and news!! H& I got home in a daze to funeral arrangements, a house full of family and the daunting task of burying my 52 year old big sister who had always, always been there for me. The last words I said to Sara before we left was "I love you and Merry Christmas" on the phone. She must have had some premonition or something-she called many of her old friends the week before her death..it was like she knew..

Ten years later I am back in Chile to finish, complete the process. The grief has faded but still there-this trip will add to the healing-I am dedicating our 2 month adventure to Sara..she woud have wanted it so..:)