Happy All Saints' Day!

Well, I can't very well say "Happy Halloween" anymore, can I? I know, it's the curse of being a pastor's wife. Only the ridiculously liturgically educated would actually know today is All Saints' Day...

Anyway, I'm on call for 6 days this block and I got things started off with a bang right away on Thursday with a couch sit, which was very quiet. Then, just when I was looking forward to a quiet Halloween evening at home answering the door for cute little ghosties and pumpkins and Hannah Montanas, I got assigned a Tampa overnight trip - with an entire 9 1/2 hours in Tampa. My show time was at 4 pm, and we only took 79 people with us. We had a very nice crew and the flight was uneventful, which is sometimes a very good thing! One little guy on board was decked out in his Batman costume, so I handed out candy to the handful of kids we had on board. Since they were missing the traditional trick-or-treating gig, I think they really got a kick out of it.

The neatest thing for me was when I went into the cockpit to let the pilots make a trip to the "sandbox", as they call it. The FO mentioned we were paralleling the coastline in the FL panhandle. The sun had already set so it was very dark outside, and the FO started pointing out groups of lights below: "That cluster of lights there is Dothan, AL; that one over there is Panama City; that one back there is Mobile." So amazing! As an Alabama native, I KNOW how far Dothan is from Panama City and it never ceases to amaze me how close together all these cities look from 39,000 feet. Dothan was easily identifiable as a circle of lights, which makes sense since it "famously" has a highway perimeter around it (enter TV commercial here, be sure to imagine southern accent: "Yewe cun fiehnd us awn thu surkle i-yun Dothan, AL"). Also easily identifiable was the "strip" of lights that was Panama City: i.e., the area locally known as "The Miracle Strip" to those of us who grew up on The Redneck Riviera. I bet if the night had been slightly clearer we would have been able to identify my hometown, a mere couple of hours north of Dothan. I also got to wave hello to hubby's hometown of Ft. Walton Beach. Just amazing....

As for today, I am now back home, on my 10 hours rest, looking forward to setting the clocks back tonight so I can squeeze an extra hour in! Happy weekend, everyone!