This is my journal of a wonderful trip I took with my son on Nov. 24, 2006. The "Barfing Molly on a Plane"  is about the very end of our trip, but I couldn't wait.

Got to the airport nice and early, being happy to avoid and even flee those crazed holiday shoppers. The weather was fine. I was excited for Craig--his first flight. He handled everything like a pro. I haven't flown in a few years and got really nervous!  It felt weird and perhaps inadvisable not to show that I might be able to take care of myself, but I completely shed my martial arts identity for the first time in over three and a half years. I'm usually wearing something martial-arts related. I looked every bit the Great Lakes Freighter enthusiast. Kind of like a boatnerd tourist. Later I began to think that my fellow passengers might not have appreciated my Edmund Fitzgerald 20th anniversary of the sinking sweatshirt. Hey, it's precious to me. With all the tragedies and traumas in the world past and present, I can't figure out why I latch on to this 'genre', but I sure do.

Well into the flight, the captain announced that the weather was worse than forcast. Detroit had heavy fog and we were in a holding pattern. We would continue circling for 20-30 minutes and if the weather hadn't cleared by then, we would have to divert to Flint or Grand Rapids, MI. for fuel. Sure enough, after another eternity, the captain announced that we were running low on fuel, so it was off to Grand Rapids. The couple in front of us had a darling baby, with whom I was playing peek a boo with. He had a slightly older brother who hardly made a sound. The man was about 300 hundred pounds, sported many tattoos and a shaved head. It was so amazing with those kids...and they have another on the way. Then, a man in front of them started to talk to them...and talk and talk and talk. I wish I had someone to fix him up with because he was definitely rare. He played with the kids (although they were coughing). He is just out of college, absolutely adorable,  and works for ESPN. He works college games, but now is doing I don't know what...because there aren't any games until bowl games. Called Joe. He had been tracking our flight and knew we were in Grand Rapids! I proudly and loyally announced, "We're anchored, waiting for weather". Boy did I feel like a true boat nerd (that's a good thing. at least in my world).

We sat and sat. We had been told that the fog is too low to meet the minimum requirements for this type of aircraft (DC9) to land. Who wants to just meet the minimum?  In the airline magazine, I showed Craig the pictures and descriptions of the different aircraft in their fleet (Northwest). If this standard workhorse couldn't handle the fog, what would the puddle jumper we were taking to Alpena do? Thank goodness we had a four hour stop over....we could wait here and not worry about missing the connecting fllight. Finally we were able to leave. It was so cool.......Michigan is shaped like a mitten and we could see the outline of the thumb as we passed it!  Our final destination was about the top of the index finger. We also got our first glimpse of Lake Huron! The weather didn't look too bad at all and the landing was not scary. It took so long to taxi to the terminal...what a huge airport!  We were stunned to see an indoor monorail pass by up above. The terminal for puny planes was so far away. The passage had an escalator, two people movers, and another escalator..that was it. There was nothing else down there. It was dark with strange music playing and some sort of psychedelic, changing colors light show on both walls. Neat!