incarnational bedlessness

Last year en-route to my bothers wedding and an Aussie Christmas, we had a planned night in Honolulu airport during our 43.5 hour trip down under. This week on our way to Bakersfield for Christmas with Jessica's family, we had the quickest itinerary ever, with one 50 minute lay-over in LAX. However, arriving at Vancouver airport to find several inches of snow on the ground, I thought we might be in trouble to make our connecting flight...

No, United Airlines aren't getting a new color scheme, rather our plane needed to be de-iced before take-off, adding to our delays...

The city of Richmond (just south of Vancouver) beautifully blanketed in the white fluffy stuff when we finally got off the ground...

As we taxied into LAX, we saw our prop plane taxing out to take-off for Bakersfield... bummer! It was 4pm, we had missed our connecting flight by about 5 minutes. The next flight was at 10:40pm (painful!), but the flight was full. United offered us bus tickets to make the 2.5 hour journey over the mountains to Bakersfield, but the I5 over the mountains was closed because of the snow, so we were wait-listed for the flight 7 hours later. Making the most of dud situations is a way to redeem unplanned circumstances, so we called our semi-famous actor friends in Hollywood, Josh & Rachael and enjoyed some In-N-Out Burger (animal style!) and a coffee with friends who we rarely get to see.

Back to the airport, we didn't get on the 10:40pm flight... but got confirmed on a 6am flight to San Francisco and then an 8:37am flight to Bakersfield... you guessed it, another night in an airport awaited! We pulled two airport lounges together to make a bed as we attempted to fall asleep to the Christmas carols and TSA announcements that blared over the loud speakers all night. I think I got about 2 hours...

Jess thought our bed-less nights in the Christmas season were most appropriate... Joseph and Mary's travel plans didn't work out as they expected either, the Inn was full, their child was born in a barn. It is good to occasionally challenge the notion that we are entitled to a proper bed each night...

It was nice to finally arrive into Bakersfield 24 hours after leaving Vancouver (it would have been quicker to travel to Sydney, and I think we would have arrived in better shape too), the sun was shining and the surrounding mountains were blanketed with snow...

May you have a blessed Christmas, as you celebrate the bed-less birth of our Saviour and Lord...