Catherine Travels, June 12-14

Bill and I are bound for China, travelling along the Silk Road. Simply beginning this trip has not been as easy as I imagined it would be. I hope there are lessons learned and that our troubles aren't just the way travel happens these days.

Our original airline tickets did not include my full name - Candace Catherine - just my middle name. When I called Expedia in April to add the full name, they said it would cost $200 to change. Mistake #1: I lost my temper and told them no; probably used words like extortion.

And so, I waited until 72 hours before we were scheduled to leave, as the tickets would then be released to the airlines and I could call them directly. Because 3 airlines were involved (another gift from Expedia), they couldn't change my name on the ticket. Air Canada was the only airline that tried, along with our tour company, Journeys. United and China Air both explained at some length the tricks that terrorists use and/or the scutiny that TSA provides to be sure they can't change names willy-nilly.

Next Step: I had a major meltdown. I was convinced that we would not be able to board the plane, and that our journey of a lifetime was disappearing. Mistake #2: I was so out of control that it seemed likely that if we did fly, we would not be speaking to each other. I was barely able to restrain myself from considering purchase of a new set of tickets for $4800. I would have had to get a paper route along with a job at McDonalds.

At the end of the day we headed to San Francisco, where our first flight originated, to sleep over before our 6 a.m. departure. Of course, we spent the first half of the drive nattering at each other, words like obsessive compulsive disorder were thrown around a little loosely, in my opinion. But that early flight, if not Mistake #3, at least created a challenge. United counters don't open until 4:30, even in San Francisco, so that by the time our documents were checked, our baggage accepted, and security cleared, we had to run for the plane. The good news was that time pressure, or luck, or possibly good sense, led the document-checking woman to not question my identity. Maybe it's just being old: my son-in-law Drew said it was going to be very hard to say no to an old woman with her itinerary in one hand and her day pack in the other, especially if she teared up a bit. Turned out I didn't have to.

And Mistake #4: Bill left his brand new I-Pad in the lobby of our hotel; it had disappeared within a half hour. Hard not to be suspicious of the hotel staff, isn't it, since this all happened at 4 a.m. We were bailed out of this mistake as we often are, by son Ben who cancelled all the sensitive accounts on the device. But, so much for rapid, easy blogging. It will be internet cafes for me, I guess.

No problem for the final air leg of the trip, in Vancouver to Beijing via China Air. The woman who checked our documents was cheerful and efficient and raised no questions. There isn't much to say about flights over the Pacific except that they are very, very, very, very, very long -- but no crying babies, no sneezing and coughing, in our immediate area. So life is likely good.

The final Mistake, in the What On Earth Was I Thinking: I tried to log on to load this first blog. Tried and Tried. Had no trouble getting to my e-mail through the web. And then put two and two together: I told you all I'd use Blogspot, a Google product. Remember that Google thing with China? Ah well. For now, Bayliss will load this onto the Blog Spot.