Getting Mickey-tized....Day One

Day One of the Taylor's Big Adventure....

Okay so today is the day....the day I have been dreading, AND the day I am extremely excited about.

We are going to see Mickey!!! Woohoo! But in order to get there I have to do that dreaded thing that for the past week has encompassed my thoughts....and has been so difficult to control that I have almost lost 5 pounds. FLYING.

So I don't know when exactly my fear of flying started, one day I could fly fine, and the next, all I thought about was crashing and dying. It might even surprise you to know that I took flying lessons from Kent State Airport when I was sixteen....because you see I wanted to fly fighter jets in the Air Force. Why? I HAVE NO IDEA. Needless to say, that experience was short lived because after I took my first commercial flight that same year, my dreams of flying fighter jets disappeared. AND my fear of flying started.

The next time I flew was on a business trip to California with my co-worker (and long-time friend) Nancy. It was an uneventful flight out there (non-stop) and I even fell asleep (no kidding). The landing into San Diego was spectacular, really amazing coming in over the bay. But, on the way home we flew out of Orange County Airport which is quite similar to Akron/Canton. For some reason that scared the begibbers out of me. We had a layover at Houston Airport and at the time, you could actually go outside and come back in (before 9/11) without being frisked, strip searched and interrogated. But don't worry, no sooner did I walk outside...stopped breathing because of the thickness of the heat and humidity, that I walked right back in to wait anxiously for the flight home. (Nancy on the otherhand had a bit of a hangover and could have cared less what was happening....)

As we were about to take off from Houston, we accelerated down the runway, when the pilot put the brakes on and said we needed to stop and go back to maintenance due to a light indicating the cargo doors were not locked properly...he joked--Don't want your luggage dropped all over the midwest--hee, hee.

So we scooted over to the maintenance bay and sat there for about 15 minutes before he came back on to say that the light must have malfunctioned because the cargo bay was secure. What? What else is malfunctioning? The light that says you are not going to crash?

Needless to say, that has been one of my least favorite flights, and I believe (you'll have to ask Nancy) that I may have caused a bit of an uproar on the plane. Not sure if people were looking at me with sympathy or daggers ready to make my prediction of dying in a plane true...

So here is the deal...I am going to blog about it, maybe ease my anxiety (that and some Xanax the doc prescribed for me yesterday)...And to make it more fun, I will blog about the entire vacation from flight out there to flight back. (If I make through...)

So Day One begins with our flight leaving out at 3:00 from Akron/Canton--flight #925. You can track our progression at fligtaware.com (very cool--got to check it out).

We are also going to be staying at the Polynesian for a couple of days before the main event--The Disney Cruise to the Western Caribbean.

More to come--I hope. Make sure you say an extra prayer for our safety and maybe one for the sanity of the other people on the plane....

So here we go....we're going to get Mickey-tized!