I’m not much of a traveller.

I haven’t been to very many places in my lifetime. I’ve never been to a foreign country.

I’ve had a few short vacations over the past few years. My wife Rita and I have taken trips to Arizona twice.  We’ve also been to the East Coast twice to see some of my family. 

Those trips weren’t very stressful. Mainly because it was just Rita and myself travelling. We just needed to give notice at work that we’d be taking off a few days.      

But that’s not always what happens. 

A few months ago, Rita’s son moved from Minnesota to Florida. She wanted to set up a trip for a few days to visit him and his family. That sounded fine - just the two of us for a visit and a chance for Rita to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

But that “trip for two” soon evolved into a much bigger event when Rita’s daughter and other son said they would also like to go visit their brother in Florida.

Okay. Two more adults plus Rita’s 10-year old granddaughter.  That made five people.

So when should we go?

As it turns out, Rita, her son and grandson in Florida all had birthdays a few days apart, so the plan was to make the trip around that time and have a big birthday celebration for all three.

Now we had to pick a date, book flights, find lodging and a rental car in Florida, as well as plan when and where we would all get together for the party. 

In early August, Rita started looking at airlines and flight schedules and had to consult with each of her kids with possible dates. Everyone agreed on Sept. 22-25. That way we’d be back on Sunday and everyone could get back to work and/or school on Monday.

She looked for a hotel and found a three-bedroom Airbnb that was close to her son’s house. It was expensive, but cheaper than hotel rooms for everyone. The Airbnb also had a pool, so we planned to have the party there.

We still had to arrange departure and arrival times for our flight. But there weren’t many flights available. We ended up with a departure time of 6 a.m. Thursday and wouldn’t land back in Minneapolis until about midnight on Sunday.

Well, we figured we could make that work if Rita’s son-in-law drove us both ways. We’d still have to squeeze in the vehicle for about an hour both ways. But we wouldn’t have to pay for five days of parking. 

It could work. 

So we booked our flights and reserved the Airbnb.

We thought we had everything settled, but a few weeks later, Rita’s son-in-law decided he would also like to go on the trip.

His flights were on different dates, so he could still drive us to the airport, then when he flew, he could leave the car parked at the airport for us to take when we landed. 

I arranged for a kennel for our dog. He found a kennel for their dog. We shipped our metal detecting stuff by UPS to Rita’s son’s house so we could check out the beach there. Finally, we felt like everything was set.

The night before departure, everyone stayed at our house so we could all leave together. We woke at about 3 a.m. when Rita’s son arrived from Duluth. We left before 4 a.m. and got to the airport and to our departure gate on time without incident. 

No problems with the flight. The Airbnb was great. Rita and I got a chance to do some metal detecting on Friday while all the kids were hanging out together and we all met on Saturday for the pool/birthday party.

Rita and I spent a few wonderful hours at the beach on Sunday before heading to the airport. We met up with everyone else in time for check-in and boarding.

Our flight from Jacksonville was on time to our connecting flight in Charlotte. But then things stopped going smoothly   when the airport ground crew couldn’t get the boarding ramp up to the plane. We waited, and waited and waited to get off the plane. Finally, we started to exit but had less 10 minutes before our next plane was scheduled to begin boarding. We rushed to the departure gate, only to find a huge crowd waiting to board our flight..

A few moments later, the departure sign changed. Another 15 minutes before boarding, it said. Then it changed again, and again and again. We finally boarded an hour past the scheduled time.

Two hours and twenty minutes later, we landed in Minnesota. It was after 1:30 a.m. It would be at least another hour to the farm - after we found the car in the maze of parking lots. We walked for what seemed like a half mile in the deserted airport, then hopped on a tram to the light rail platform. We waited about five minutes for a train that took us to the other terminal parking area. After two elevators and an escalator ride, we finally spotted the car. It was one of about 15 left in the entire airport lot.

We got to the farm after 3 a.m. Monday morning. Everyone headed home from there, and probably didn’t get any sleep before their day started.

I slept until 7:30 a.m., then headed to the kennel to pick up the dog before I had to pay for another day. I brought her home, walked her for 10 minutes, the went back to bed.

I’m still recovering.