How I Ended up from Point A to Point Where the Heck Am I?

How I Ended up from Point A to Point Where the Heck Am I?

A Travel Story for the Ages

By Beckie Williams

It was a rough time making it up to Montana. Some might say that I should take this as a sign that Montana is no place for me, but ehh we’ll see.

Travel Attempt One:

I received a frantic call from Chad on the Tuesday morning saying there was 12 inches of snow on the ground and that it was still falling. Called the airport and sure enough, the flight was canceled. I was offered a lovely night stay in Worland, WY, I declined this lifetime opportunity in exchange for one more night in CO. Oh, I also forgot to note that Central Montana was the only place on the entire North American continent that had any severe weather, please reference map below:

Travel Attempt Two and this is where it gets fun:

Woke up to a gorgeous Colorado spring morning, wearing my flippy floppies as I am loading up the car, just a beautiful morning all around. Get to the airport and do all the airport things. The TSA agents at the security check point were stellar. One agent had something in his eye, so the other agent (the one that was suppose to be looking at the screen when bags went through the xray machine) kindly turned his attention away from the screen to examine his colleague’s eye when my bags were going through. Thank goodness the only questionable item I had in my bag was some lip gloss.

The plane took off on time and it was a packed flight this time, let me tell you. Eight passengers in all! By far the most people I have ever seen trying to get to Worland, Wyoming or Lewistown, Montana. It was a windy day in Colorado, so it was a bumpy lift off in the little prop plane. Every minute or so the plane dipped down and I got that feeling that I get in my sleep sometimes, like you are just falling and nothing is there to stop you and all you want to do is wake up to make that feeling go away. It took about 30 or so minutes for the plane to level out, then it was smooth sailing to Worland.

It is a really gorgeous flight from Denver to Worland, you fly over the Rockies the whole way and you also find out that very few folks live in Wyoming. Then we start to land in Worland, it appears to be very windy in Worland as the landing was no easy feat. The plane was swaying side to side now and all I kept thinking to myself, “there is no possible way this dinky plane is going to land without flipping over.” It landed mid-sway, we did not flip over. Five passengers departed in Worland, including the lady that resembled Julia Child, but seemed way more drunk than Julia ever appeared to be on any of her shows. I think this lady was a rum drinker though, not a vodka drinker as I imagine Julia Child being. Three passengers left, plus the 17 year old pilot and 19 year old co-pilot. Word to the wise, if your pilot looks younger than the assistant manager at your local Taco Bell, he probably is and you should de-board the plane immediately. On to Lewistown, Montana-weee! Oh wait! I forgot to mention that before we took off from Worland, the pilot and co-pilot were talking about their assigned approach into Lewistown. This is the actual conversation held betwixt the two:

Co-Pilot: They have us coming in from the West? With wind blowing at 30 mph and such a low cloud ceiling?
Pilot: That is what it looks like, this could get really bumpy and bad. I don’t know how we will do this.
Co-Pilot: Maybe we should request to circle in from the southeast, that way to avoid the strong wind.
Tom (a fellow passenger and one of his hobbies is flying his Cesna): Did they give you any GPS coordinates to check against, that way you could choose the best landing upon approach?
Pilot: This bird here (taps the steering column of the plane) doesn’t have a GPS system, we are old-school pilots and rely solely upon our instruments.
Tom: (loud enough so that only me and the other passenger could hear) Old school pilots? What are they, like 12?

This is when the real intense fear set in.

As predicted, the flight into Lewistown was not pretty. Let me digress for a minute though, please refer to the map once again. Most of the way up to Lewistown, snow was nowhere to be seen on the ground. When we get about 10 minutes away from landing in Lewistown, heavy cloud cover sets in and the ground is covered with snow. Ridiculous I tell you and makes me question “Why the heck are we moving here again?”

The pilots come on the speaker and say we will be landing in about 10 minutes, so check your seatbelts and all that jazz. Time ticks by- this has got to be the longest 10 minutes ever and I need to buy a watch for my next flight. Then I feel it, we start to land. Yes! Victory! Then I see the runway, the airport and Chad’s car in the parking lot! Almost there, yippee! Then… wait, where are we going? Why are we shooting back up into the air? Why did the pilot miss the runway? This is where I get really upset. Not crying, as one would expect from me. But pissed off. I mean really, really angry that the plane didn’t just land. Then I literally lose it. Three times. Another word to the wise, please check your barf bags before you actually need them. I found that some folks like to use them to get rid of their flavorless gum by placing the discarded gum smack dab in the middle of the bag, thus leaving the barf bag useless to you in your moment of need. If you are one of those folks that discard your gum in this way, stop doing that. Karma is going to get you one of these days and it ain’t going to be pretty for anyone involved. Typically, I have absolutely no problems flying, there has only been one time I have ever gotten sick on a plane, but I blame that on the food poisoning and not the flight itself.

Chad is in the airport and can hear the ground operator talking to the pilots. The ground operator requests that the pilot try his approach one more time and give the landing another go. The pilot refuses. Meanwhile, me and the other two passengers are stuck in the dinky airplane and the pilot is saying we are going to go fly around for a bit to see if cloud cover clears and then they will try to land again and if our fuel level dictates that we need to land, we will head on over to Billings. We don’t think the pilot ever had any intention of trying to land again. This is where I start to see the pilot wipe the sweat off of his palms on to his pants, so I knew we were in a pickle and I was pretty helpless at this point.

We ended up landing in Billings, Montana. This is 110 miles away from where I needed to be. Closing on the house was suppose to be 30 minutes ago and I am freaking out. Are we going to lose our dream house because of this fiasco? I immediately turn on my cell phone to try and call Chad. Crap, no service. So I am walking around the airport turning on and off my phone and about ready to throw it at the wall. Then I finally get service and call Chad. He says that he is on his way to pick me up, but Chad I am in Billings! He says he knows and that he will be to the airport in Billings in an hour and a half, two hours and that we can still close on the house as long as we make it back by 10 pm that night. I let the other 2 passengers know that if they need a ride to Lewistown, they can hitch a ride with us. Lewistown isn’t one of those places that you can return a rental car (which is partly why it is a nice place to live- not bothered by the big city amenities or mentality, but don't tell anyone I told you this). I start to relax now, eat a snack of M&Ms, an orange and a much needed bottle of water. I get 2 more hours of work in while waiting for Chad to pick me and the other 2 passengers up in Billings.

The rest of the story is pretty dull compared to everything that has happened up until this point. We make it into Lewistown around 8:15 pm. I signed “Rebecca G. Williams” about 100 times and handed over our cashier’s check to our realtor. We now officially owned our first home and our own slice of heaven in Lewistown, Montana. Life is good.