Our much anticipated time had finally come. Annette dropped us off at the airport and we sauntered over to the Delta/Northwest Airline desk to get the computer to spit out our e tickets needed for the plane. For this process I'd rather have the desk attendant take over and that she did. Stress level came back to normal stress level.Uh what relief! I was not meant to handle these alien like machines with its mind boggling procedure. Actually I like Annette helping me with these types of new age procedures. Our kids are more intune to these new space age problems. After we payed for all three bags to board our intended aircraft from our pocket book we walked to our upstairs destination. We decided we had better get RuthAnn some nourishment before getting on our airbird so that her stomach wouldn't be singing, feed me, feed me, feed me louder then the jet engines taking off.RuthAnn is thinking this is all I will have to eat? We sat down for alittle while until we discovered we were sitting in the wrong section, even though it was where we were supposed to be. We walked over to where we found we now needed to be sat down and soon discovered once again that they had moved us back to the section we had just walked over from. Ok we can handle this little situation,trying to keep our comments quietly between us. We sat down once more. About 5 minutes later we discovered we were once more to change our position back to where we had been. You may be asking about now,how were our attitudes? I was beginning to lose my cool, thoughly frustrated and was beginning to want to let someone in on my total disgust. I must say I didn't have a smile on my face. Annette can let you know, my face is easy to read and this was no exception. On we walked and after finding our seats ,chose which one of us would sit next to RuthAnn with the other of us across the isle. We were just getting confortable when an older lady walked down the isle and looked me in the face to say, you are in my seat. She suddenly realized we had a little one that needed to sit next to her family instead of her being with a stranger, said thats ok and walked up to where our single seat was supposed to be. I was very thankful that she accepted the seat a couple of rows up, leaving her husband sitting without her. When the seats were given to us,we didn't realize they had given us three separate spots leaving a little girl to sit with a stranger. Thank you Lord for this kind lady.
Our story will continue after we have dinner.................. 
Our take off went very smoothly with our watching for the moment the wheels lifted off the runway.Our little singsong together, Ruth Ann and myself, singing up up up up up and AWAYYYYYYYYYYYY. We smiled happily and settled in for the ride northwesterly to St.Paul Minnesota. As we leveled off the stewardess announced she would begin coming down the isle with our wonderful priviledge of choice of beverage and tiny packet of peanuts or pretzels. Yummy!! We arrived at the airport with not alot of time between and began walking somewhat at a fast pace along the people mover. We noticed there was a fast tram that could be taken on the outside of the building f to your gate but soon realized we didn't seem to have one going our direction. After alittle more of Ruth Ann beginning to tire I pointed out to Chuck a man driving a unit for the handicapped or aged senior citizens to their gate. I hugged onto a tired looking little girl, with a forlorn, frustrated look on my face and pleaded for a ride to our gate. It took a few minutes but he let down his guard, and said ok. As he attempted to weed through the slow moving crowd, another man with a radio tried to get his assistance for someone and soon discovered he was helping us out. We were let off and soon discovered the whole end area was all cordonned off with police and security personal with protection bats and small hand guns. The whole place was full of army soldiers waiting to get on a huge army transport plane that would soon be shipping them home to their families. They were not letting anyone through until they were all told they could start walking out to their transport home to their families. So much for hurrying to our gate. We ended up waiting for awhile before the yellow tape was lifted showing that public could begin filling their gate areas.
Before we left we were able to have enough time to get McDonalds and a favorite snack for on the plane to go with our on plane choice of beverage. Chuck soon found Ruth Ann protecting the trail mix from Grandpa devouring too much of a good thing. Did I say Delta/Northwest had a tiger flying Delta with us?
Here is the tiger that flew Delta. What fun we had with tiger. RuthAnn nicknamed her tiger, Delta. 
What a beautiful sight to watch us decend toward the town of Missoula nestled in the mountains, our final destination. Our loved ones were waiting for us, how excited we were. Dad, Marilyn, Colleen and Ed were waiting with open arms,smiles and hugs. Yeahhhhhhhhhhh we had arrived. Our night went well into the early morning with homemade ginger cookies, pop and talk after RuthAnn was settled on the couch and Dad had said his goodnights.
We talked,and talked,and talked some more. I was so glad to finally be at Dad's house and be there for the week. More to come.......... 
