Charleston – May 29, 2026. Jeff finally gets to come along!

Although Jeff was thwarted in his attempt to come along on my trip to Chicago, we also had Charleston circled on the calendar one week later. It was a 19 hour layover, the hotel was right in the middle of everything, and we figured it would be a good opportunity to have some ribs at our favorite barbecue place – Lewis’ BBQ. Fortunately, this trip worked out!

I was flying from LaGuardia to Atlanta and then to Charleston. The loads weren’t looking good for Jeff to fly the Atlanta to Charleston leg with me, so he flew from Baltimore to Atlanta, caught the earlier Charleston flight, then just waited for an hour until I arrived.

We had been to Charleston many times when we spent a year living in Beaufort, SC, but one thing we hadn’t done was visit Fort Sumter. I had been interested in going there since reading “The Demon of Unrest” by Erik Larson. We had been by it several times on our boat as we headed north and south, but the only access to the Fort was via a tour boat (like going to the Statue of Liberty). It was a bit pricy, but in the spirit of carpe diem we decided to use this layover to finally visit.

Since we were the last boat of the day, we were able to watch the flag being lowered which was cool.

Honestly, I don’t think the price was worth it. Yes, the ride to the fort was nice, but taking a boat ride in Charleston Harbor was nothing new for us. And the way the visit was set up, we were only allowed to spend one hour at the fort before we had to leave on the same boat we arrived with. An hour really wasn’t enough to thoroughly explore the area and the museum. For what we got, I think $43/per person was a bit pricey. Perhaps we’re spoiled by Fort McHenry here in Baltimore. We get in for free thanks to Jeff’s National Parks pass and you can stay from open to close if you’d like. Oh well. As my old boss used to say, sometimes you come up with snake eyes.

While Fort Sumter was a bit of a disappointment, Lewis’ BBQ – as expected – did NOT disappoint. Damn that’s good BBQ. And with this job, we can honestly just fly down there to get BBQ whenever we’d like in the future! In fact, I flew with a flight attendant last month who told me she and her husband fly to Buenos Aires every few months for steak night. They take the overnight flight to Buenos Aires (usually getting first class with the lie flat seats so they just sleep on the plane), enjoy a steak dinner in Buenos Aires, then take the overnight flight back. No hotel room needed! Is this a great job or what?!

32 hours in Chicago – May 21, 2026

I’ve always really liked Chicago. When I drove across the country to move to Connecticut back in 1989, I stopped there for three days and told my dad that if Connecticut didn’t work out, I was going to give Chicago a try. I STILL think about moving there every once in a while, and then I remember the winters they have! LOL!

So imagine my delight when my schedule came out for May and I had a trip to Chicago with a 32 hour layover! Jeff was planning to join me, and the hotel was rumored to be excellent, so I was VERY excited.

The morning before the trip there were plenty of seats and Jeff and I were psyched for a mini-getaway. But then the East Coast was hit with major thunderstorms that evening resulting in many cancellations. So much for any empty seats for Jeff. Sigh. Oh well. There would be other opportunities for the two of us to go. In the meantime, my trip was still on!

The hotel was every bit as nice as people said, with plenty of old-fashioned touches from when it was built. It was also conveniently located in the heart of downtown, with my first destination – the Art Institute of Chicago – only a few blocks away.

I’m not a huge art museum person, but I’m trying to develop more of an appreciation for it. This was a great museum to work on that. I downloaded their app and decided to take the “Ferris Bueller” tour.

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Pittsburgh, PA – May 17, 2026. What a pleasant surprise!

I ended up in Pittsburgh by accident. I was on A-days and had preferenced a TO, and when the automated call from crew scheduling came, it started by saying I had been awarded my preference. I was super excited, and then it said I was going to Pittsburgh. What?? Plus, the three-day trip was going to start late and end late each day. WHAT??? I didn’t preference anything of the sort! I am a morning person, and absolutely do not like days that end close to midnight, regardless of the fact that they don’t start until the afternoon. Give me a 3:30 a.m. wake up call and checking into the hotel before dinner any day.

Well, I still have no idea what kind of computer glitch happened, but the trip actually ended up being a lot of fun! I still didn’t like the late report and late release, but I never would have thought that Pittsburgh would be such a cool city if I hadn’t had this trip. Now it’s on Jeff’s and my ever growing list for a weekend getaway.

We arrived late in the evening but our pickup wasn’t until about 4:00 the next day which gave me time to check it out a bit. After Googling “top things to do in Pittsburgh” (and reminding myself I couldn’t do everything so I needed to limit myself to one or two things), I settled on the Duquesne Incline and the Strip District.

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Bozeman, Montana – May 9, 2026

I had never been to Bozeman – or anywhere in Montana – before this trip. I will absolutely be back.

Having done my research, I decided to go for a short hike. Arriving at the hotel around 1:00 p.m. gave me plenty of time. I chose the College “M” trail, a hike with a few different options to the top (I picked the “easy” option) and sweeping views. It was only around 3 miles round trip with 750 feet of elevation gain, and it was busy enough that I didn’t have to worry about bears.

It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the high 60’s – perfect for a hike. A quick $10 Uber ride took me to the trailhead and I set off. The reviews didn’t disappoint. While it was a bit of an aerobic workout going uphill given that I was already at 4,800 feet, the views were a splendid distraction. I took my time, FaceTimed Jeff several times so he could see the views, and had a nice break at the top before going back down again.

Between cruising on our boat and now living in Baltimore, I haven’t had much mountain scenery for the past eight years. I wouldn’t want to live in them, but visiting sure is easy on the eyes!

After another $10 Uber ride back to the hotel, I explored downtown a bit. I bought chocolates at La Chatelain Chocolat to bring home (they were amazing), and also bought Jeff some local coffee beans at Ghost Town Coffee Roasters.

I actually got lucky with the chocolate. Typically they would have been closed by the time I arrived, but since it was graduation weekend and downtown was busy, they had decided to stay open for a few extra hours. They were happy with the extra purchase, and I was happy that I was able to buy some chocolate!

I didn’t realize that Bozeman is only a few hours drive from Yellowstone National Park. That has been on our bucket list for awhile, and with Bozeman being so cute, we’ve decided that we’ll try to go there this fall once the tourist season has died down – but before the snow has started to fall! We can spend some time exploring Bozeman AND go to Yellowstone.

We had a 4:15 a.m. pickup time from the hotel the next day, but it was well worth it for such a fun layover. And as an added bonus, the Captain made an announcement to let us all know when we were flying over Mount Adams and Mount Rainier on our way to Seattle, so I was able to get a great picture!

It was a great trip, and one I would definitely do again.

Everyone said I’d find out what kind of flying I like the best. San Francisco – May 2, 2026.

During training and after, our instructors and senior crew members would tell us that we’d figure out what kind of flying we like. It didn’t really make sense to me. A plane is a plane, and a trip is basically a trip, right? Well, when I worked my first transcon (transcontinental) on a wide body, I understood. All of a sudden, I realized what kind of flying I liked. Give me a coast-to-coast trip on a wide body aircraft any day. One boarding, one deplaning, plenty of time for service, and a good layover. They aren’t worth much in terms of credit hours, but I like them a lot anyway.

I picked up my first widebody transcon on my A days when I preferenced it, and it was awarded to me. A-days are six days a month when we are on call – either two sets of 3 days, or one set of 6 days. You can be sent anywhere at any time, but you can preference available trips. They are awarded by seniority, but I’ve found that if it’s a domestic trip, I tend to be successful. A TO? Forget it. I’m way too junior for that. But I like to preference a domestic so that I can have some control over my schedule on A days.

So when I looked at open time the night before my A days started, there was a nice looking trip to San Francisco that I preferenced and was awarded. I hadn’t been to San Francisco in over 35 years, and now I was going to get a 20 hour layover downtown. I was psyched!

On top of the destination, I liked this trip because it released at 10:35 p.m. on my second A-day. That meant I couldn’t get used before 10:35 a.m. on my third day. I had the choice of either trying to drop my third A-day without pay, or roll the dice and hope I didn’t get a call for my third day. If I didn’t get used, then I could get released at 5:00 p.m. and fly home to Baltimore while still getting paid for having been on reserve for the third day. These are things I hadn’t even thought about when I initially started six weeks prior, but I was slowly gaining more experience in how to make my schedule work for me whenever I could despite being so junior.

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The best birthday present – Paris! April 27, 2026.

Trips are awarded by seniority, so, being a junior flight attendant, typically the only way I’m going to be able to get a transoceanic (TO) trip is by trading with someone else or picking it up when I can. (Flight attendants who are designated as being able to speak another language fluently get TO’s regularly regardless of their seniority.) I won’t pick up trips on my days off – those are sacred – so that leaves trading trips with someone else, or having the ability to pick up a TO if someone else just takes one of my trips that I’ve put up on the drop/swap board.

Trading trips is typically a no-go for me, because seniors who want to trade TO’s will typically only trade for either another TO or if you’ll take two of their trips in exchange for giving them one of yours. I’m not about to work MORE just so I can get a TO. So, despite my fellow classmates going on TO’s because they are working almost every day that they are legally allowed to, I continued to impatiently wait for lighting to strike while enjoying my days off with Jeff.

I’ll put trips that I’m ambivalent about up on the drop board, but they aren’t particularly attractive to most flight attendants because they are junior trips. In other words, if I’m not crazy about the trip, most everyone else isn’t either for the same reason. If it’s up for drop, no one is going to take it unless they have room in their schedule and they have a desire for that particular trip.

So it’s with that background knowledge that I found myself in my crash pad late in the afternoon, the day before a trip with layovers in Hartford and Norfolk. I certainly didn’t mind going on that trip. I had plans to have dinner with friends in Hartford and I really like Norfolk. But I had put it on the drop board just in case someone wanted it so I could try to pick up a “better” trip. Better could mean higher credit, more appealing layovers, or – dare to dream – a TO.

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Boise, ID – April 23, 2026

I was a poli sci major at UConn for my undergraduate degree and spent time working as a legislative aide at the State Capitol in Hartford, in additional to running two political campaigns. I eventually went to law school and spent the majority of my career working in local government. I’m understandably a bit of a government nerd, so it should come as no surprise that I decided one of the many fun things I could do with this job was to tour all 50 State Capitols. Previously I had toured the Capitols in Hartford, Connecticut (obviously) and Annapolis, Maryland (also obviously). Only 48 to go!

Number three was Boise, Idaho where I had a 15 hour layover. We arrived at the hotel around 3:00 which gave me just enough time to walk over and check it out. They weren’t offering guided tours, but there was an interesting exhibit in the lower level about the history of Idaho and it’s Capitol, and I was able to walk around on the different floors. Unfortunately, the legislative chambers were locked up, but I’m sure I’ll have another layover there in the future and I can try again.

Construction began on the Capitol in 1905, fifteen years after Idaho became a state, and it was completed in 1920.

As you can tell, it was a beautiful day. My dad would have called it “Chamber of Commerce weather.”

Four types of marble were used in the construction: red from Georgia, gray from Alaska, green from Vermont, and black from Italy.

This statue of Washington, covered in gold leaf, was carved in 1869 out of white pine, Idaho’s state tree. The artist, Charles Ostner, spent four years carving it by candlelight after working during the day as a miner.

Obligatory dome pictures:

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My first flight – March 19, 2026.

I was really nervous leading into my first flight. I had a day off between orientation and what had been scheduled as my first flight – a 3 day trip with a classmate as of one of my fellow crew members – so I decided to rip off the bandaid and I picked up a turn to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic on my day off.

A turn is when you fly out to a destination, the passengers leave, new passengers get on, and you fly back to your base. No time to sightsee, but turns have their advantages. For example, if you just want to pick up some extra money on your day off, or if you live in your base so you can be home each night like a traditional job.

I couldn’t have asked for a better trip for my first flight. My fellow crew members were AWESOME. Of course I told them it was my very first flight and they were SO enthusiastic. They showed me the ropes, gave me great advice, and the pilot took a group photo of us at the end. We even had a bit of extra time when we landed in Punta Cana, so one of my fellow flight attendants took me to the duty free shop where I bought some Bombay Sapphire for Jeff. Between the duty free discount and the crew discount, it was quite a deal!

Sunset somewhere between Punta Cana and New York City.

By the time I got back to my crash pad I was tired, but I had done it! My first flight was under my belt, and with my first three-day trip the next day, I knew I’d sleep better for having worked the turn vs. tossing and turning with nerves in anticipation of what was supposed to be my first flight. One trip down, hopefully many years of trips to go!

How I went from the slowest mode of transportation to the fastest.

I needed a full-time job with benefits, but I couldn’t go back to being a lawyer. After traveling since 2018 on our Bristol 29.9 up and down the U.S. East Coast and the Bahamas, the idea of sitting behind a desk again was NOT appealing. We had finally settled down in Baltimore, MD and I was eligible for admission to the Maryland Bar without having to take an exam, but my application sat on an open tab on my laptop for a few months. I clearly didn’t want to do it.

Casting about, trying to think of careers that were more appealing than the law, I was scrolling on Reddit when a suggested sub-Reddit came up: Cabin Crew Careers. I clicked on it and saw that it was about being a flight attendant. A flight attendant? Hmm. My dad had suggested it when I dropped out of college almost 40 years ago, but I hadn’t pursued it for reasons that I can’t remember.

So I researched it for a few hours and discovered that the U.S. mainline carriers were taking applications. Although I hadn’t applied for a “real” job since 2005, I knew that corporations now used AI to sift through resumes, so I fiddled with mine a bit to add a few keywords that I thought would be appropriate, and I hit “send.”

I had no idea that a U.S. mainline carrier gets 100,000 applications for 1,500 jobs. I was clueless about the fact that if my resume made it past the AI filter, I would then have to take an on-line skills/personality assessment that would need to pass muster with AI, then record myself answering situational questions that would need to – yes, get past the AI. Only then would I be able to have a live, face-to-face interview before finding out if I could get the job. Ignorance can be bliss.

All I knew was that the more I researched it, the more it sounded like the perfect job for me at this point in my life. Approximately a month later, my resume had made it through, I passed the assessment and the pre-recorded interview, I was flown out for the face-to-face interview with around 50 other candidates for that morning alone, and I landed the job.

To say I was surprised was an understatement. And to say I was excited about it was a REAL understatement. When I got the email offering me the job, I literally ran around the table repeatedly, all the while yelling, “WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

But there was a long way to go before I earned my wings and could start flying. Seven weeks of training, six days a week, 10-12 hours a day. It was like drinking from a firehose. Weekly tests. CPR and first aid. Door day. Ditching day.

It was a lot. There were some tears and there was a lack of confidence at times, but I made it through. And here I am! Still traveling, but on an airplane instead of a boat.

There is a saying among sailors: “Nothing goes to windward like a 747.” I figured it would be the perfect name for this blog. Unlike my last blog, this one will focus primarily on travels – layover fun, non-revving fun, both on my own and with Jeff.

I want to have a diary with pictures to look through to remember my adventures once I’ve finally settled down. I may throw in a flight attendant info post here and there if anyone cares – assuming anyone is reading this besides my family and friends (unlikely given the scope, but that’s fine.)

So let’s see what happens. To quote Ellie in the movie “Up”, adventure is out there!