The road from Manchester to Lincoln is very long...
My Dad is the quintessential military man and has traveled the world. He has been retired from the Air Force for about 13 years now and is a civilian employee of Northrup Grummond. My Dad is a technical writer and for a living he edits and writes large books about very technical, military and sometimes top-secret stuff. He just loves it.
My Dad is a very organized person. The Franklin Covey personal planner that I gave him years ago is probably - still - one his all time favorite gifts and every year he faithfully orders the refills. His home office is well organized and even his beloved record album collection is catalogued. Chaos for my father is when things are way out of his control......and this brings me to his current adventure.
My Dad was recently elected to travel to England, alone, to train a few of England's finest in the Royal Air Force. He left on Saturday and was pretty much stressed out about the entire trip for weeks before leaving. I was thrilled that he was getting to go and encouraged him to embrace this extraordinary experience. I even tried talking my Mom into joining him (but, I think Mom was happier with having the house to herself, the cat and dog. : ) To say the least, Dad was really worrying about this trip and the training he would be facilitating in another country. I suppose, maybe deep down, he just knew something bad was going to happen. The "pessimistic realist," that he likes to refer to himself as, must have had an idea that things were not going to go well.....
I received an email from my Dad yesterday letting me know that he had indeed arrived safely in England.....but not without a few interesting developments:
His luggage was lost en route from the states to England and he spent hours at the Manchester airport being shuffled to and fro looking for said luggage. He nearly missed the train to Lincoln (his final destination) again b/c of missing luggage, made the train, barely, but unfortunately the train broke down on it's way to Lincoln. The bus he was then told to take to Lincoln wouldn't take him...still unsure why, the train, in the meantime, miraculously recovered and Dad had to scramble back to the train station to catch it - which, again, he just nearly missed. Exhausted and starving, he finally made it to his hotel, but sadly, once in his room he found the phone was not working, the internet connection was not working and the programming on the television was screwed up and he was receiving some other hotel guest's pay-per-view dirty movies. I can't tell you how frustrating all of this must have been for him......but, I hope that he is able to see some of the humor in his travels. Have you ever seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles? Apparently, all Dad needed was some obnoxious tag-along to help him get into even more trouble.
Update: I got an email from him this morning and he sent some beautiful pictures (a good sign his spirits are lifting.) He sent me the following message:
Beautiful morning here. Temp about 65, sun shining and cool breeze. My hotel is next to a quay. On the way here yesterday, and in virtually every place I passed through, I kept getting stared at and overheard some comments about me as I passed by. I had my suspicions as to why, since I had to change shirts before I left home (the only other one I had available was my Hawaiian shirt - and of course I had my hat on). In Sheffield, I was approached by a slightly inebriated tall young "footballer", who pointed at me and said, "'Oy, you an American!" I said I was, and he approached and touched my shirt and shook my hand, then called over some of his fellow "footballers" to see my shirt. I heard one of them say to another, "Only an American would look like that."
Classic Rick.
Happy Trails Dad.
My Dad is a very organized person. The Franklin Covey personal planner that I gave him years ago is probably - still - one his all time favorite gifts and every year he faithfully orders the refills. His home office is well organized and even his beloved record album collection is catalogued. Chaos for my father is when things are way out of his control......and this brings me to his current adventure.
My Dad was recently elected to travel to England, alone, to train a few of England's finest in the Royal Air Force. He left on Saturday and was pretty much stressed out about the entire trip for weeks before leaving. I was thrilled that he was getting to go and encouraged him to embrace this extraordinary experience. I even tried talking my Mom into joining him (but, I think Mom was happier with having the house to herself, the cat and dog. : ) To say the least, Dad was really worrying about this trip and the training he would be facilitating in another country. I suppose, maybe deep down, he just knew something bad was going to happen. The "pessimistic realist," that he likes to refer to himself as, must have had an idea that things were not going to go well.....
I received an email from my Dad yesterday letting me know that he had indeed arrived safely in England.....but not without a few interesting developments:
His luggage was lost en route from the states to England and he spent hours at the Manchester airport being shuffled to and fro looking for said luggage. He nearly missed the train to Lincoln (his final destination) again b/c of missing luggage, made the train, barely, but unfortunately the train broke down on it's way to Lincoln. The bus he was then told to take to Lincoln wouldn't take him...still unsure why, the train, in the meantime, miraculously recovered and Dad had to scramble back to the train station to catch it - which, again, he just nearly missed. Exhausted and starving, he finally made it to his hotel, but sadly, once in his room he found the phone was not working, the internet connection was not working and the programming on the television was screwed up and he was receiving some other hotel guest's pay-per-view dirty movies. I can't tell you how frustrating all of this must have been for him......but, I hope that he is able to see some of the humor in his travels. Have you ever seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles? Apparently, all Dad needed was some obnoxious tag-along to help him get into even more trouble.
Update: I got an email from him this morning and he sent some beautiful pictures (a good sign his spirits are lifting.) He sent me the following message:
Beautiful morning here. Temp about 65, sun shining and cool breeze. My hotel is next to a quay. On the way here yesterday, and in virtually every place I passed through, I kept getting stared at and overheard some comments about me as I passed by. I had my suspicions as to why, since I had to change shirts before I left home (the only other one I had available was my Hawaiian shirt - and of course I had my hat on). In Sheffield, I was approached by a slightly inebriated tall young "footballer", who pointed at me and said, "'Oy, you an American!" I said I was, and he approached and touched my shirt and shook my hand, then called over some of his fellow "footballers" to see my shirt. I heard one of them say to another, "Only an American would look like that."
Classic Rick.
Happy Trails Dad.
Comments
I think for the rest of the weekend I will remain in my little office.