Flying High

Call me a doomsday thinker. Catastrophe thinking, it's called, rather. But I'm starting to wonder whether I'll ever make it back "home" again. As I said to my mother, every year it seems, the flights are too expensive for us, until the next year, when the prices are even higher, and I think, well, last year was sure cheap!

When I came here ten years ago I go could whenever I wanted, and I visited regularly. Flying to Utah from Amsterdam was a few hundred dollars for me and my son. Once we paid less than $300.

Now, the kids are in school. They're bound to school, and so am I. The school inspector would track us down, and slap on a steep fine, if we were "absent" for a week before, or a week after a holiday.

Problem is, the only even remotely affordable time to travel is outside of the school vacations.

So I wait, and I twiddle my thumbs, and I search for affordable ways to travel. I haven't seen half of my family members in two-and-a-half years. This year it's more than 4,000 euros to fly "home." That's over $6,000 with the awful exchange rate.

It makes me cringe to think that next year will be even more expensive. Oil reserves are drying up, and "airplane fuel" (somebody help me here) is becoming even more expensive and scarce than benzine. The Dutch papers ran two days of stories on how much more expensive it's going to get. The airlines will be forced to cut back service to meet rising costs. I wonder if it will be $10,000 next year for four people to fly to Salt Lake from Amsterdam. I really ought to go this year. I wonder when I'll ever see my parents again.

Last night I had a nightmare that we were being held hostage. I was able to sneak a call to one of my cousins in Seattle to tell her about it.

Will the days of air travel become a thing of the past? One dollar is .64 cents.

My Swedish, Dutch, English, and Norwegian ancestors left Europe, and never saw whomever they left behind again. A bold and courageous move. Sometimes I wonder if my move wasn't just stupid. I have an inkling it wasn't. I'd like to be a little more confident.