Day 12 of the Goodbye Tour. We left Amherst, MA on Sunday, spent the night in Philadelphia with eldest son Zach and his lovely girlfriend Cierra, and arrived in Washington D.C. on Monday afternoon where we're spending a couple days with my brother Geoff.

Our timing was perfect in that we got to enjoy lunch with niece Amanda as she had a layover at the D.C. airport on her way to Paris. After a fabulous meal we dropped her off at National. Unfortunately, one of the flight attendants fell ill and they had no replacements so the flight to NY got cancelled. Amanda scrambled for a flight to get to NY in time to catch her evening connection to Paris, to no avail. The airline did book her onto an early morning Paris flight and by the time I went to bed last night she was arranging to fly into La Guardia, take a shuttle to JFK and spend the night at the airport.

I relay this story to remind myself that even when travel plans get completely mucked up there will always be some way to work it out. Lee and I will be doing an awful lot of flying in the next couple years. I'll use Amanda's experience as a reminder to NOT PANIC when stuff hits the fan. (It would be especially helpful if Geoff were available with his computer and calming influence to get us through any rough patches.)