Day 1/2 - Red Eye

The Vogeler Family has begun its Church History Tour as of Thursday, May 24.  Tim graduated from Columbia Law School this week, Mom and Dad flew out early to be with him, and the rest of us (Heidi, Eric, Erin, Alli, and myself) flew out Thursday night on the red-eye to meet up with everyone in Rochester, NY to begin the trip in Palmyra.  Let the fun begin!

- 11:59pm Thursday night

Our red-eye flight from SLC to NYC departed.  It was all fun and excitement up until we got in the air and realized that sleep was the only thing I really wanted and the only thing that I was not likely to experience for the next 5 hours.  I travel often for work and I'm used to the whole flying thing, so I'm well aware of the space (or lack of) that an airplane seat offers.  SkyMall magazine and I have become close since I started working at my new job and I remembered one of the hilarious-but-intriguing product offerings: The SkyRest Travel Pillow.

Since I have not purchased, nor will I ever purchase this product, I had to get resourceful.  I took my stuffed-to-the-brim carry on backpack and rested it on my knees and balled up my sweatshirt to use as a pillow (Sorry, no picture).  This actually worked.  Without realizing it, I was out, or at least as "out" as you can be during a flight.  I woke up somewhere between 30-60 minutes later, happily realizing that I had actually fallen asleep and then not-so-happily realizing that just about every muscle in my neck had seized up.  I slowly turned my head from left to right to left a few times to loosen up the muscles.  Feeling eventually returned to my neck muscles and I began wondering whether the nap had been worth it.

We landed at JFK airport and had a 3 hour layover before a quick hour flight to Rochester.  We met up with the rest of the crew at the airport and piled into a 12-passenger Ford F350 van  that we were undoubtedly about to create many memories in over the next 10 days.