Some of you may remember our June encounter with Southwest Airlines over a mask (and let me say that we love SWA and are stockholders). Masked the whole time, I was approached about putting on one of their masks, complied, but briefly mentioned a previous medical issue (I used to have horrible convulsions) and how the mask I chose prevented hypercapnia, which is when carbon monoxide gets trapped in the mask and in people with neurological histories, can cause seizures. Because I had complied, we were utterly shocked when we were forced to get off the plane, were humiliated to tears, and wound up spending the night in the airport waiting for a flight, still wearing the funeral clothes from what was supposed to be a 1 day trip, but turned into 3 due to another issue which delayed all flights. Well, for the last 5 months we have gone back-and-forth with them as they denied any wrongdoing, even though we had a 45 minute video of the entire drama and were prepared to post it. Finally, they offered us a small amount—which we did not feel was fair and so we refused it—and then they came up a bit. At that point it was either accept it or go forward and create a scandal, and that is just not the kind of people we are. 🙌🏻

And lo and behold, just as the settlement came in (and only in the form of travel vouchers) they also had a massive sale, and so today I am happy to announce that I was able to book a 2022 trip of nonstop flights for our 38th anniversary (and it is also our 40th year together). We will be going on a 5-state New England tour next March and April for our very first ever trip to Cape Cod! And it knocks 4 states off of our bucket list! We are aiming to visit all 50 states TOGETHER and after this we will only have a little more than a dozen to go (and we will put some of the travel vouchers we have left over toward that). So, today I booked some beautiful (mostly oceanfront) VRBOs— 2 nights in Vermont, 2 in New Hampshire, 2 in Maine and 2 in Rhode Island. And we will also have time in Massachusetts, which we love. We have been watching our SWA stock and will likely sell it to pay for all of those stays and the rest of the trip. So…we have closure. We do not feel like this one young flight attendant represents all of SWA, and so I’m sure we will fly with them for years to come. Time will tell. But for today I am thankful to God for justice, favor, and for a “free” Spring blessing to look forward to. 🙏🏼