Vacation dreams take flight

The trouble with waiting until the end of a fun-filled, week-long vacation to blog about it, is it's hard to figure out where to start. I guess at the beginning is as good a place as any. The airport.

It was our first time flying in three years, which means it's the first time Sydney remembers the airport/airplane experience. We made it through security - thankfully without incident - and Sydney could only stare in awe at the long concourse full of stores and restaurants. "It's like the Mall of America!" She excitedly proclaimed.

To my pleasant surprise, my normally clingy daughter chose to sit next to Jeff on the plane. Because she wanted to play war with her special deck of cards. "Daddy loves playing war," she said with the utmost confidence.

Initially, our seats were divided two and two, with one pair in aisle five and the other in the back row. By wonderful coincidence, the elderly couple standing in line behind Jeff had the other pair of back row seats and were more than happy to trade up so that we could all sit together.

AJ got the window seat. And then pretty much ignored the view while playing with his iPod.

The flight passed almost uneventfully, until a certain 8-year-old who's rather mortified by the story, decided to use the bathroom. He could do it himself he insisted. And with our seats in the back row, the bathroom door was right between Jeff and me. What could go wrong?

Well, for starters, AJ didn't lock the door. And the clueless woman who approached a few moments later apparently didn't believe me when I told her she needed to wait because my son was in there. She started to open the door, saw just enough to totally embarrass herself, slammed the door shut and - with a red face -rushed back to her seat.

AJ must have responded by locking the door. Because a few moments later we could hear frantic pounding. "I can't get out."

Did I mention that the back row and the bathroom are pretty much above the plane's engines? The plane's very loud engines?

Jeff did his best to tell AJ how to unlock the door, but AJ couldn't hear him. But we sure could hear AJ.

"Dad! The door's locked. Help!"

"Slide the knob."

"I can't. The door's locked!"

"Slide the knob above the door handle."

It took three or four tries, but at last he made it out, even more red-faced than the woman who'd barged in on him.

The flight attendants missed all the fun. They'd been up front passing out treats. Sydney was pretty excited to get in-flight snacks. She and "Mary" enjoyed a nice tea party.

At last we landed. Sydney was disappointed that the San Antonio airport, at 9 p.m. has much less going on than the Twin Cities airport in the middle of the afternoon. The temperature was a glorious - in the low 80s, so as soon as we reached our hotel, we headed out for a stroll on the Riverwalk.

Good thing we did. As it turns out, it was the warmest weather of the entire vacation.

More tomorrow...