My Boys: Malta, NY

Our son moved from Charleston, SC to Malta, NY in June.  Once he was settled in he started asking us to come visit.  Blake is in the Navy and in Charleston he lived on base. Now he is off-base in an apartment and I think he really just wanted us to see his first place.

Because he works and we work it took some work to find a time that worked for all of us.  He was going to have a long weekend which just happened to coincide with his 21st birthday.  When I called him to see if he was okay with us coming that weekend, he said yes.  I was concerned that we might cramp his style by arriving on the day of his birthday but he assured me he could get his drunk on any-old time.

The trip will be a short one, we will arrive Friday morning and leave on Sunday afternoon.

Except that we won't leave on Friday morning!  Thursday night, I was organizing our confirmations and happened to look down and see that the time of our flight says PM.  

I almost started to cry.  I am so OCD about checking and rechecking my flights just so this very thing doesn't happen.  I get on the airline website to see how much changing flights will cost and it is $1700.  Per ticket.  I call the airline and the lady who answers is unsympathetic.  The problem is that the airline has a flight at the same time in both AM and PM so this is an easy mistake to make.  Finally she offers me a solution, call back in 4 minutes and they can change for $75 per ticket because the flight has a lot of open seats.  I called back, paid the money and we get up early Friday as expected and go to the airport.

I mean early.

Too early for some.

I hope I am never in a situation where this is necessary.

Traveling with David is sometimes not that different from traveling by myself.

Other people are sleeping, he is already watching a movie.  I am watching a woman freak out and rush around the adjoining gates.  I found her purse in a bathroom stall earlier and gave it to the TSA (which you are not supposed to do by the way - who knew? - you give it to the police).  I finally catch her and tell her where she can find her purse.  She asks the airline employee helping her to hold her plane.  Yea, that's going to happen.

On the airplane, David goes back to his movie so no chit-chat for me.  The only airport we could fly non-stop to is Bradley in Connecticut.  This means there is a two hour drive once we land to where our son lives near Albany, NY.

David gets very stressed out driving in unfamiliar places.  I am not crazy about it but I do it enough that I don't freak out the way he does so I do a lot of the driving when we go places outside of our home area.  This is what he does.

I think of our three children, David misses our son Blake the most.  They did stuff together like going to the movies and ballgames. But mainly they misbehaved together.  They may be apart more often that not but when they are together, some things don't change.

David is getting warmed up.

At Blake's apartment, they share their first beer of the weekend.  Blake is 21!  

Blake showing us his fine china.

We go to a place right across the road from Blake's apartment that he didn't know existed.  The boys had two beers back at the apartment and more are forthcoming. 

It might seem like this picture is after more beer the same day but that would be incorrect.  This was taken the next day in the morning before any beer is ingested.

After the restaurant, we take Blake back to his apartment where his friends have plans to take him out for his birthday.  We have plans to go to The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown the next morning and I warn him that I am not above leaving him behind if he is too hung over to get up in the morning.  It is about 2 hours to Cooperstown, he can sleep it off in the car, as long as he promises not to barf.

The next morning, he calls by 9 am to say he is up and ready to go.  I am impressed.  He wants me to be impressed with the deposit he made in the parking lot the previous night but I would rather not look.  David seems secretly proud.  Blake climbs in the back of the car but we don't go directly to Cooperstown.

Blake left his credit card at the bar.

We walk around and check out some of the shops in Saratoga Springs, NY (a cute town we might explore more if we had more time) while waiting for the bar to open for lunch. They tell us the card in a safe so we have to return after 4.  So, we load up our freeloader son and get on the road to Cooperstown.  Better late than never.