Back on the Road Again

déjà vu
Geneva Switzerland
September 21st


The adventure continues. After three weeks in Seattle Roby and I had itchy feet and needed to be back on the road. Very strange how comfortable it has become to be on the move, almost feels like home. No rest for the weary on this little journey. Seattle has never been good to us when it comes to traveling. We had it perfectly planned to leave Seattle on Monday mid-day and arrive in New York and catch a cab to our friends Bryan and Julie’s house for a good night’s sleep and then visit with them for most of Tuesday before we left for Geneva. We should have known better when we received an email alerting us our flight from Seattle was going to be two hours late but they still wanted us there on time just in case. Well that was not going to happen. Good thing because when we did arrive, our plane was going to be delayed again because the maintenance crew noticed the pilot’s window was cracked and needed to be replaced. All they could tell us it was going to be at least another two hour delay. Thankfully we had Monday Night Football to occupy our time. However, the two hour delay turned into a four hour delay and we were now not going to be leaving Seattle until 7:00 pm. This entitled us to a meal voucher worth $7.00. Please tell me where you can find anything to eat for $7 in an airport that has any nutritional value. They gave us the option to take the next morning’s flight at 6:30 am and they would put us up in a hotel. We thought about it but if the morning flight was delayed even an hour we would miss our connection in NYC to Geneva. Therefore, we opted to hold out for the evening flight and endure the pain of arriving in NYC at 3:00 am. Because we had nowhere to go at that hour this led to the climax of our journey a three hour nap on the airport floor next to the baggage claim. Being rudely awoken by the passengers from the 1st flight arriving in NYC at 6:00 am, we wrestled ourselves off the floor and decided this was a more reasonable hour to arrive at Bryan and Julie’s so we flagged down a cab to Brooklyn. The two disheveled travelers with backpacks and a broken down duffle bag from the Salvation Army arrived at the high-rise condominium under the watchful eye of the skeptical doorman. He did not believe we belonged so he called up to Bryan’s unit to confirm we were invited guests. Arrival time Brooklyn-8:00 am. --Departure time JFK-3:30 pm--Arrival time (Geneva) 11:00 am the next day). A record for us-two days without sleep. We were not finished- a 4 hour drive to Zermatt.

We gathered our luggage; no customs inspections because we had nothing to declare we headed toward the car rental counter. The clerk gave Roby the key and a trusty map of Switzerland and off we were in our Skoda Roomster. Leaving the airport was tricky but amazingly we figured (okay luckily figured) our way to the freeway entrance and headed down the road. After a couple of hours unfortunately jet lag caught up with us and the “neck-bone boogey” was in full force. We pulled into a rest stop parking lot, shut off the car, hand-rolled the seats flat, assumed the position, and passed out for an hour. Welcome Back!!!