My Best Flying Story Yet   (July 1, 2011)

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Yesterday, while flying from our hometown of Charleston, SC to visit family in Minnesota (with a layover and change of flights in Houston, Texas), my wife and I had the flyer's equivalent of a golfer's hole-in-one.

I've flown on hundreds of airplane flights over the years, and as you might expect, certain flights stand out in my memory for all sorts of reasons. Before yesterday, two of my best memories of flying were (1) having my suitcase come off the luggage carousel as the very first item, and (2) changing from one plane to another at a layover, and finding that the gate for the second leg of my journey was immediately adjacent to the gate at which the plane from the first leg had just arrived. (Don't ask me what my worst memories of flying are: that could take hours for me to recite!)

Anyway, yesterday our airplane from Charleston landed at the Houston airport on-time and pulled up at Gate 63. We grabbed our voluminous carry-on stuff (which for me includes a laptop computer as well as scads of diabetes supplies) and schlepped all of it down the incredibly narrow and incredibly long aisle, and off the plane. Next thing, of course, was to find out the departure gate for the next leg of our trip, from Houston to the Minneapolis airport. Amazingly, it was listed on the arrival/departure computer screens as also being at Gate 63!

Neither my wife nor I quite believed it, but when we looked at the information board at the gate we had just arrived at, we indeed saw Minneapolis listed as the next destination from the gate.

A half-hour later, we boarded (or should I say, reboarded) our flight to Minnesota, with all our carry-on stuff, and sure enough, the same flight attendant who had previously cheerily said goodbye now greeted us and welcomed us aboard. The same gate, and indeed the same plane and same flight crew, flying into Houston with one flight number, and leaving Houston with another. And to make the story even more incredible, our seats on the second flight were in the same row as the first flight.

It's a story that we've told to all our family in Minnesota, and it has generated all sorts of interesting responses. So I decided I would share it with my on-line readers also, for your holiday weekend reading enjoyment.

A very Happy Fourth of July weekend to everyone; may all your travels be safe and easy.