Leaving, On a Jet Plane

Tomorrow is the first day of our vacation. We're off to the big sky, open prairie and craggy Rocky mountains of Alberta (despite PR campaigns to the contrary). It's where I grew up and it's where one half of the wee man's grandparents live. Days of lounging by the pool in thirty degree dry heat with a few days of camping in the most glorious of national parks, Jasper, await. Great food, good company, rest and relaxation, natural beauty, a live-in babysitter. Should be a dream vacation.

Snaring River, Jasper, AB

So we should be excited, gettin' in the groove, takin' a load off, sittin' back and enjoying the ride. Yes, we should, in theory.

There's just a couple of little hurdles in the way.

The first, is we like to be organized. Now that we're a bit older, and definitely strict adherers to "the rules", we tend to like to know what's in store. We tend to google the sh*t out of it, read, plan, make lists, apply lessons-learned and scour friends, neighbours and colleagues for best practices. Sure we may be a bit anal, but it's become how we roll. Unfortunately we've never done this particular this before. We've never travelled long distance with the little guy at this age (we did do 3200 kms by car last summer, but he was still immobile) and never by plane. We don't really know what to expect, let alone how to prepare.

And this leads to our second big hurdle - what's the flight with the little man going to be like? Will he be chill, resigned to his fate on my lap, flirting with stewardesses, charming seatmates and making the flight literally fly by? Or will he, as in my worst nightmares, howl the entire journey, struggling against his confinement like a trapped wildebeast, throwing aeroplane food and alienating an entire cabin of complete strangers?

I'll be sure to let you know, provided we actually get there.

I just hope my folks have a beer or two on ice for when we touch down in Edmonton.