law school mommy

last night i went out to dinner with my dear friend rebecca, her husband justin and their friend wendy (another girl from iowa…they are EVERYWHERE).  at dinner, rebecca was telling us a little bit about her work trip to indonesia.  while taking some personal time after, she opted (as i probably also would have) for the $15-cheaper non-government internal flight option.  her flight was fine, but THIS is a picture of another plane of the fleet as of yesterday (she assured me that this plane was on a different flight plan):

apparently the plane kind of belly-flopped onto the runway.  the whole fleet is now grounded, as you might imagine they would be.

so this led to a discussion surrounding people’s travel invisibility cloaks.  you know what i mean…it’s that cloak of safety you pretend is wrapped around you when you’re out and about in the world…that lends itself to you doing stupid things, that occasionally should have gotten you killed, but usually just revolve around things like livestock in planes, sneaking across national borders, and strange encounters with interesting people. 

part of the problem with these stories is that too often, people don’t understand WHY it was so much fun to do things that, in retrospect, often seem just plain dumb.  i would argue, though, that surviving some of those events end up being some of the most amazing and memorable moments of our lives. 

i personally wouldn’t trade even my scariest travel moments for anything.  of course, i’ve never been directly physically threatened by another person that i can remember, and i think my tune would change if that was the case. 

if you have a really good travel story, please share!