THERE ARE AIRPLANES---AND THEN THERE ARE AIRPLANES......MARCH 14 2012.......

Last Friday morning bright and early we (Mike, Tammie, Jerry, and, of course, me) headed for the airport.  We flew Jet Blue.  First Time.  Would land in Boston to make connection to Augusta Maine, where we would be staying.

Son Andy (whose birthday party we were attending) had no business in Augusta so we were pretty safe in not having to watch out and not run into him.

So a-skipping off we go.  We arrive in Pittsburgh, go to our favorite off-site parking garage The Parking Spot, leave the van and take the shuttle to the airport. 

Jet Blue planes are nice, a little extra leg room, built in entertainment centers, all o.k. Jerry and I on one side of the aisle, Mike and Tammie just across from us.  We could goof off just fine.

Landed in Boston.  Smooth flight.  Beautiful weather all the way.  Our connecting flight was through Jet Blue's partner Cape Air.  Never heard of it, but that's o.k.  I have never heard of a lot of things.  I should have known when we could not get boarding passes on line for Cape Air.  We had to report to the Cape air desk in Boston.

Then the real "fun" began.  The desk agent needed to weigh all our bags (we each had only one standard size carry-on, we were only going to be gone 3 days), we just looked at each other and handed over our bags, where-upon they proceeded to weigh each bag, and attach a tag with the bag weight.  (Tammie's was the heaviest, mine the lightest, the guys in-between.)
Home free.

Nope.  The he said he needed our weights --yes we had to tell him how much we weighed.  We are looking at each other "ut-oh, this doesn't sound good", but if we wanted to get to Augusta we had to comply.  Mike and Jerry were heaviest, Tammie and I lighter, thank goodness!!!  After that we were given the go-ahead, but nothing like boarding passes. 

At boarding time the ticket agent had us proceed down a flight of stairs to the landing strip, where we were met by a "tour guide" who walked us across the landing strip to our "toy airplane"!.  We just looked at each other.

Our luggage was taken from us and stowed in a compartment in the front of the plane.  It had 2 old-fashioned propellers.  Then they  (by then there were 4 men standing there),  one was the pilot, one the co-pilot, and they announced that the two heaviest would board first.  Mike and Jerry.  There were a couple of other people with us, but is was just a 7 seat airplane.  Right.  7.  The reason for loading pattern was keeping the weight balanced in our toy airplane.  The heaviest went first, sat right behind the pilot and co-pilot.  Jerry got the behind the pilot seat. 

You could not stand up in this little toy, had to walk bent over to your tiny little seat in this tiny little airplane.  So we are ready to fly to Augusta.

Once seated we were all comfortable, except for bossman.  Wish my camera had been handy, what a photo-op.  The pilot was a large man, about Jerry's size.  He pushed his seat clear back, until he was in Jerry's lap.  Literally.  So not only did Jerry have the pilot in his lap, he is tall (like his Dad was), and had to sit bent over.

He didn't even have wiggle room. And a 45 minute flight. 

Of course no flight attendant (would have had to be a midget) no beverages (you could die of thirst) no entertainment, just hipity-hopping along for 45 minutes at about 7000 feet. 

We arrived, landed, and crawled off the plane.  You could hear backs creaking as we all stood up.  Except Jerry.  He had a hard time standing up again.  And to top it all Lauri had come to the airport to meet us, and was bent over laughing so hard.  She was right at the door to the hut that was the terminal.  First thing Michael told Lauri was that if the pilot had turned around for any reason he would have been right in Jerry's face, they could have kissed.  More laughter, we could hardly walk through the hut to the parking lot.  Lauri told us that when she saw that airplane landing her first thought was (this doesn't look good).

Of course they are all looking at me.  I was the cause of it all as I booked the flight.  Everyone was in agreement that we fly into Augusta, I had no clue what Cape Air was about, figured it was a smaller commuter Jet.  It was a commuter o.k.  Just not a jet.

We had a rental car waiting a short distance from the airport, Lauri took us and our luggage there to pick up the car, and it just so happened that our motel was directly across the street from the rental place.

We checked into the motel, Lauri headed home from "shopping".   We loafed a while, then headed to their home in Oakland, about 40 minutes away.  Andy works  5 p.m. - 5 a.m. on his shift, and we didn't want to arrive until we were sure he was at work.

We had supper at Cloud 9, the food was awesome, grandson Kurtis and his girlfriend Margo joined us for supper, then we all returned to the house and helped (watched) Lauri finish putting pictures on the posters for the party Saturday night.

It was late when we returned to the motel, Saturday was going to be a free day until we had to be at the restaurant party room in Waterville by 5 p.m.