Day drinking is not something I ordinarily do, but last Thursday was not an ordinary day. It was a busy travel day for me, and with two hours to kill at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, I decided that a rum-based margarita would be a good accompaniment to my BBQ pork belly Cubano sandwich. Yep, at 10:30 in the morning.

The drink was refreshing— not quite a daiquiri and not quite a margarita— and it went down a little too easily as I counted the minutes to my 12:15 flight. The sandwich was, well, airport food. Overly processed and way too salty. There was one skimpy piece of flabby pork belly, and some ham that tasted like it was pulled straight out of a Lunchables package. The pickle was OK, at least. I thought about Kenji López-Alt, my culinary idol, and what it must be like to have half a million Instagram followers to make lunch spot recommendations for you. When Kenji traveled recently to Colombia, he posted an inquiry: “Hey, I’m at the Atlanta airport on layover, where do I eat?” And just like that, 517 suggestions rolled in— all of which were, apparently, fabulous. Me? I passed by multiple food courts and standalone eateries until I found the one closest to the gate for my next flight. It was all about proximity.

When I travel through airports, I like to watch the people and imagine where they might be going. I saw a few groups of millennial age professionals, dressed to impress and headed to a conference, I figured. There was a woman in a tee shirt that read, “pray more, worry less.” She was by herself and seemed very relaxed, so point taken. Then, a young family with the mom pulling a wheeled carry-on behind her, a bulging backpack weighing down her petite frame, baby on her hip and a husband trailing behind, carrying exactly one thing and staring at his phone. I seriously considered throwing ice on him, just to wake him up.

All these people could be going absolutely anywhere, as Charlotte is the seventh-busiest airport in the world, with about 1,400 arrivals and departures daily. I passed by one gate where the attendant was making announcements in Spanish— that flight was destined for Puerto Rico and then Costa Rica. One day, I’d like to be on that flight, but not today.

My travel plans for the week did not include stops in Colombia, Costa Rica or any other tropical destination, but I have been counting the days ’til this trip. In a couple of hours, I’d be on the ground in Providence, Rhode Island for an extended weekend with my cousin, Annie. She is not actually my cousin, but we have introduced each other this way since we were pre-teens, as it’s way easier than describing our relationship as it really was, back in the rural upstate town we came from. In truth, Annie is my ex-stepmother’s aunt and uncle’s former foster daughter. And I am her former foster parents’ niece’s ex-stepdaughter. Confused? Yeah, that’s why we’re cousins!

Our ties to that small town did not endure, but the friendship certainly has. We spent our long weekend laughing, catching up, chowing down and (literally) sittin’ on the dock of the bay at Annie’s cozy lake house in Connecticut. Not a bad start to an 11-day vacation, by any means.

The weekend went too fast (don’t they always?) and when I hugged Annie—my oldest friend—goodbye, I rented a car and high-tailed it northward to Norwich, Vermont, just barely outrunning the flood of the century.

If you have seen the news coverage of the devastation in Vermont, you might be thinking, “is she mad??” But this part of my journey has been in my plans for a long time, since my sweet husband gifted me a high-dollar gift card to King Arthur Baking Company— not for ingredients, pans or gadgets, but for a baking class. This trip ticks the box on a big bucket list item for me, and I booked it several months ago, when no one could have predicted this awful weather.

I buckled up Monday morning and, with plenty of worry in my pocket, I white-knuckled my way through the rain across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, and arrived at King Arthur’s Norwich campus with only five minutes to spare before check-in for my first class.

This has been a wonderfully busy week, and there will be plenty of stories to come about the lessons I’ve learned in this class called Bread: Principles and Practice, but my adventures in New England are not over yet. When class dismisses late this afternoon, I will venture north again to debrief my experience with one of my newest friends, a fellow cook and baker who is known to some of you, if only on these pages.

Of course, more rain is coming, too. Stay tuned! 😉