Diverted

So I stayed up all night worrying about being an immature idiot and whether my flight to Rochester, New York for "spring break" would be cancelled. By 4 am there was a serious blizzard blowing and 6 inches of powder in upstate NY and a front bearing down on Boston, but my wife cheerily assured me that we still had a window before the Nor'easter shut down all travel.

So I pulled myself together, packed my golf clubs and my son's into a hard cover tube that looks like a bazooka tube to teh TSA and always gets searched. Even though we would at best be lucky to smack whitey at a range the idea of a week's vacation without the prospect of sport makes me wither.

Spring break 2007 would involve packing up the remnants of my parent's estate in a snowstorm. Dad killed himself 11 months ago, unable to recouperate from the blow struck when my mom died in 2003 from the sporadic form of mad cow disease.

I was hardened, hung-over and fairly heavily stressed out when we pulled into Logan. The rain from the Nor'easter was starting to fall sideways I figured we'd be lucky to fly any time in the next two days. They called our section and I stood there talking to a guy in a Red Sox hat about how we were heading into the teeth of the storm - six inches fallen already and 1-2 feet forecast. He told me he thought we would be flying around it. But I pointed out that we had to land in it nonetheless. Then my wife Emily handed me my ticket... to San Juan Puerto Rico and said, Surprise!

It was awesome. My son Clint didn't figure it out until we were landing and the pilot mentioned that it was 87 degrees and that we were landing in San Juan Puerto Rico... What continent are we on? He asked bewildered by the possibilities.

My daughter was wondering about why we were flying over the ocean, but is still more surprised that her mother could fool her for so long...

So here I am in the mountains at Nelson's Country House a few hundred yards from the entrance to the Carribean National Forest with about 700 screeching frogs yelling in my ear. 2000 miles from estate planning and putting my family heirlooms in PODS containers. I'm told there are more pleasant surprises to come, there always are with Emily... It's good to be alive.