November 12: Writing Prompt #316-Come Fly with Me

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

It was Spring Break in Alabama when I stepped on the plane to Atlanta, GA. It was just the first leg of my journey, which would take 2 days to complete and take me from the cool spring weather of the south to a very hot, tropical climate.  The ride from Huntsville to Atlanta was short, but that’s okay. It would give me a quick break before the non-stop 9-hour ride to Honolulu International Airport.  Once there, I called the airport hotel shuttle to get dinner and some rest before my early morning flight to the United States Army Kwajalein Atoll.  Even though it was my first time traveling so far from home and in a hotel by myself, it was an uneventful day and night. The hotel provided a discount for dinner at their restaurant, so I stayed in and ate a quiet dinner alone, then headed back to the room for some TV and bed.  I had to be back two hours before my 6 am flight.  The beauty of Hawaii and its unique cultural identity would have to be explored another time. I would not be able to experience any of it on this trip.

The next morning, I took the airport hotel shuttle back to where I had just landed a few hours earlier.  I was nervous and excited all at the same time. After a long 7-hour flight, including two stops at Johnston Atoll and at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, we finally skidded to a smooth stop on the just long enough tarmac of the 3-mile long, ½ mile wide low-lying coral island.  The biggest surprise for me was realizing that there would be not a jet way connecting the door of the plane to the inside of the airport.  Instead, I walked directly out into the tropical air of the island, and the humidity hit me in the face like a warm, wet washcloth while all around was the most amazing blue-green ocean I have ever seen, all from the top of a set of airplane stairs.  Little did I know that this would be just the first of numerous plane rides to and from the islands over the span of the next 17 years, and even after visits to many other places since that time including Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Guam, and Bali, Kwajalein is still the furthest I’ve ever traveled from home.