The Joy of Travel
In a former (real) life, I traveled a lot for business. I must admit that many years ago, when I first started flying from place to place, there was a sense of excitement about it. So, obviously, one of the great attractions to being an AKC judge is the fact that we get to travel on a regular basis. It is truly the joy of travel.
Let me share some of these joyous moments with you.
A typical judging weekend may start with awakening at 3:30 to 4 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight to wherever. Very seldom do we get to take a direct flight to the show location, so we get to see two or three different airports — usually having to run through terminals to catch a connection (or at least what passes for running at this stage of our lives).
Two questions: How do the airlines always manage to have my gate at the farthest point possible, and whose job is it to adjust all the seat belts on the plane so that I have to let them out when I take my seat and feel that I keep putting on weight? It’s bad enough that I have to walk miles to get to my next gate, but on top of it I have to take five escalators and two different shuttle trains to get to the farthest terminal. Give me a break!
And speaking of shuttle trains, the last time I had to go through Dallas, I had to take the shuttle to my next connection, and … the train got stuck! So, there I was (with another judge who had a short connection time), sitting in a non-moving train while the clock was ticking, and the other judge’s connection time was quickly disappearing. And the stress level kept rising! What fun!
Do you know how unsettling it is to think that strangers are talking to you because they walk and talk out loud about anything and everything while they appear to be looking at you? When you look more closely you see they have these silly things sticking in their ears. Why do people think it is OK to do this? I don’t really care what is going on in your love life or your business. I sure miss those phone booths. Just another “get off my lawn” comment?
So, after finally getting on a 6 a.m. flight, all I want to do is close my eyes and grab some Zs, but the joy of travel just keeps on giving and giving. Inevitably the people behind my seat have a long — and loud — conversation. OK, I will try to get past that, but then the person next to me decides it is time to share her life story with me. No matter how often I close my eyes, she just keeps going. Want to know how many children she has — or where she went to school? Neither did I.
I almost always board early, so I am one of the first people on the plane. Since I might have to get up to let someone get into a seat next to me, and obviously can’t sleep, I “people-watch.” When I see people staring at their boarding pass like it was a wild animal getting ready to attack, and then getting close to the row numbers and looking at them as if they are all Mr. Magoo, it truly makes me wonder who decided that humans are the most intelligent species. I don’t believe it. As further proof of our diminished intelligence, I think that anyone who has to be told how to click and unclick a seatbelt should not be on a plane — as a matter of fact, perhaps these people should never leave their house. Then, if there is a chance that we may need to use a “flotation device” on a flight from Dallas to Phoenix, I think the pilot needs a better map. These things — and our politics, which is so filled with hatred and lies — makes me believe that when aliens fly past Earth, they lock their doors and speed up.
Like many of my judging brethren, I am much more than a million-miler. I have basically used the same suitcases as carry-ons for many years with never a problem. But then I run into — as Sheldon would call her — a petty functionary with a clipboard — who decides that I have to check my suitcase. When I tell her that I have carried this on for years, she tells me that every other gate agent was wrong and didn’t do their job correctly. She is the only one in the country who is right. Yes, ma’am! Where have I heard that before?
Psychiatrists say that when a memory is so unpleasant, our minds block it out. That must be why I can’t remember my destination when my connecting flight is cancelled because the crew had timed out and needed to get their sleep! Are you telling me that no one in that airline has a watch? There was no other crew available? I — with many others — wound up spending the night in the airport. The United Club is not open all night, so I had the opportunity to TRY to sleep on the hard plastic chairs at that airport until a crew was available the next morning.
The joy of travel is not limited to judging assignments. One of the icons of our community was scheduled to give a seminar at a national breed-club gathering. Of course, she had to leave at O-dark hundred in the morning. Her first flight was delayed, then came an unscheduled trip to a different city rather than the original connection city to pick up crew members. She was delayed another hour and a half before finally going on to DFW, the original connecting airport. Of course, she missed the connecting flight to the small eastern Tennessee town where the national was being held. Because this small-town airport only had limited flights per day arriving from DFW, she could not get to her destination in time to make the scheduled presentation. Thus, it resulted in spending the night in the DFW airport. Last I heard, the cost of the ticket was not yet refunded. The situation resulted from Helene damage where scheduled crew members were unable to get to their home airports — some of which were closed because of the storm — so the crew "timed out." Obviously, Mother Nature was part of this meltdown. Another stressful weekend, but this one didn’t even have the joy of judging or sharing thoughts with others in our community as a reward. Just a wasted trip!
International travel has its own additional stress because of the length of the flights. On top of that, when I went to an assignment in Sweden, of course the airlines lost my luggage. I had to have something more than my jeans to wear for my judging assignment, so I went shopping. Do you remember what we called “pegged pants”? They were pants that were very slim, and that was OK when we were teenagers. Well, apparently everyone in Sweden is still built this way, because I may have been able to get my legs into the pants they sold, but there was no way my butt was going to squeeze in! Thankfully, my suitcase arrived the next day. Whew!
* * *
I have just returned from a judging assignment for the Wenatchee Kennel Club in Washington. Wenatchee is the apple capital of the world, and there are always sliced apples available in handy little plastic bags at every table, and large apples in the silver bowls awarded for group or Best in Show.
I think what this club has done deserves to be shared with others. For a relatively small town, this club has approximately 85 members. They have raised enough money to build a beautiful training-center building, and there are plans for additional expansion. This building and the grounds are used by members for training for all canine activities, and the club allows the local police department to use it for their canines. In addition, the club has helped train dogs to smell and identify apple and other fruit plants that are diseased. The dogs are used in the field to identify these infected plants so that they may be removed and will not spread the disease throughout the crop. Needless to say, this club is well regarded in its community.
One thing this club offers to its judges is wonderful hot meals — breakfast and lunch — prepared by the daughter of a club member. The cook is not even a club member, but she certainly is a treasure to the club and the judges who are fortunate to be there.
I am sure there are other clubs that have similar stories, and I think the AKC should make a point of sharing these stories with the general public to show what our wonderful dogs and clubs can do for them.
What do you think?