Five Hours in MSP

Airports are a stressful place. Typically the minute I walk out of my house to go to an airport, I move up a notch in terms of stress level. Once I walk through the revolving doors into the actual airport, it goes up another level. I don't fully relax and take a deep breath until I get to my desination.....and pick up my bags from baggage claim. But that's a story for another time.

Once we had Riley and started traveling on planes with him, those stress levels increased ten-fold. Now don't get me wrong, Riley is a VERY good traveler. He loves planes. He loves de-icing trucks. He loves baggage claim carousels. He even likes it when his stuff gets to go through the "tunnel" in security. However, he is two and requires a small arsenal of toys, snacks, books and juice. And sometimes (usually on the trip back) he doesn't always want to go where we need to go when we need to go there. And he makes his dislike for such demands known publicly.

This past week, we flew to North Dakota to have a series of family reunions with Missy's family. We reun'ed (I just made that word up for this blog alone but you can use it if you like) with Missy's aunt (Missy's mom's sister) and her family. We reun'ed with Missy's dad's siblings and their family. We reun'ed with Missy's grandmother and Riley's great-grandmother. Though that was the first time Riley met her. He was a little shy but did bust out a few verses of "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy" for her. AND we reun'ed with Missy's family (parents, siblings and their family) which we do biannually and is certainly one of the things we most look forward to throughout the year. It was a great time to see family we haven't seen in a long time, meet new family members and truly take in the North Dakota culture (check out the family blog - delppartyofthree.blogspot.com for pictures and one of my favorite new videos of Riley).

It was wonderful but all the running around didn't help with Riley's nap schedule. In short, he didn't have a nap schedule except for one day on the trip. So by the time we lifted off from the Minot International Airport heading for Minneapolis/St. Paul (or MSP for airport code), we were all tired and had already experienced one of Riley's public displays of displeasure towards, well, pretty much everything.

And we were headed for a five hour layover.

Northwest, as wonderful as they are, pushed our last flight back three times between when I booked the trip and when we left. We had a nice hour and a half layover that would get us home around 5:00 pm. When we took off, it had been pushed to five hours. I figured I could take evasive action once we arrived in MSP and get us on an earlier flight a la "Amazing Race". However, I was informed when we stepped off the plane that we could go standby if we paid $150 and came back to the airport to get our bags. Since one of our "bags" (a trash bag) was Riley's car seat, there was no option. We were staying for the long haul.

And let's say things were slightly tense. I was fully prepared for five hours in the third circle of hell.

However, Missy and I prayed over Riley's chicken nuggets and our "morale builder" - day old, overpriced sushi - lunch that we would make the most of the time we had.

And the weird thing was, we did.

In fact, we had a blast. We had the rare opportunity to be in an airport, with a two year old, with no stress. We had nothing but time. Riley could do WHATEVER he wanted for almost five hours in a place that offered more fun and cooler stuff than any playground I have seen.

We rode escalators. We rode people movers. Mostly in circles back and forth, up and down. We rode the tram between Gates C-D, over and over and over. We played at the indoor playground. We watched the endless line of carts as they honked and transferred elderly and overweight people through the airport.

All while surrounded by stressed travelers and in some cases, their displeased children.

And the time flew.

Before we knew it, we were figuring what to do for dinner and making sure we could squeeze it in before we boarded our flight for Philly.

No one would ever accuse me of being overly optimistic. If I saw a glass that was filled halfway with water, I would complain that it wasn't Coke. However, experiences like this open my eyes to the fact that in almost any situation, we have the ability to control our perspective of that situation. I could have easily sulked and pouted for five hours. But instead, we embraced the fact that we had an entire billion dollar facility at our fingertips. And other than some "Watch out, Riley" 's and some "Sorry, excuse us" 's, we had the world's most elaborate family playground to ourselves.

Some highlights:
Riley in front of one of his favorite things: A motorcycle

Riley in awe of the tram in all its "choo choo" glory.