Travelling thoughts

My first thought about travelling is always, "Is someone going to complain I spelled 'travelling' wrong, even though two Ls is a completely valid and correct way to spell the gerund of 'travel'?"

But then I get over it and figure, hey, time to catch up on things (you know your life is too busy when you're looking forward to the three hours at the airport and on the plane to "catch up" on things). Which really means, "How much crap can I stuff into my suitcases and carry-ons?" You know, crap that gets dealt with and not brought back (like magazines and such).

On this particular trip out, I managed to pack a lot. Yet, certain events pulled me out of the pleasant putzing I usually manage on the plane, on the bus, waiting in the airport, or waiting for my baggage.

1. "Shut up. He did not." ... "Shut up!" ... "Shut up! No way!" ... "Shut up! How could he?"

   The vocabulary of a college woman several rows back from me on the shuttle to Boulder consisted mainly of the words, "shut up." She prefaced every sentence (statement, exclamation or question) with a very, very loud "Shut up!" making me, and every other shuttle passenger, wish that she would indeed shut up.

2. The two year old kid screaming in the next row over and one row up on the plane has a healthy set of lungs. The screaming seemed fairly infant in its sound, so I assumed it was the baby crying and not the toddler. After about an hour of screaming (most of which I didn't notice because I was reading), I paused to wonder, "Can you rationally communicate with a two year old? Can you use logic to convince her to be quiet?"

3. 

   The shuttle driver clearly knew several of his passengers as regulars, and was talking and joking around with one of them. The shuttle company had merged with another shuttle company recently (like within the last month), and the driver was now working with new people in the other company, and under a new boss. When the new manager/boss/supervisor handed him his route, he looked at her with such contempt I'm surprised she didn't burst into flames on the spot.

   Near the end of the drive, one of the regulars asked the driver how the merger went, did he know any of the other drivers. With venemence you can read about only in books, he started spouting on about no, he didn't know the other drivers, no, he didn't want to know them, no, he didn't even want to know their names. I thought the guy was going to explode with the desire to keep all these peopple away from him.

   At which point I wondered, is that why this guy is a shuttle bus driver in the first place?

4. Before boarding the shuttle, the large group of us stood outside the back of the shuttle and handed our luggage to the driver to load in the back. As I stood there, the two women in front of me each had three bags, and two of them (for each woman) was the gigantic enormous size. I couldn't help but think how I managed one small bag, and that one half full of technical books so that I could do my job.

So, here I am. 6" of magazines read (and thrown away), still wondering about this whole travel thing.