Today started as another ordinary Minnesota day.

We have been slowly warming up to springtime. Our Northland weather systems have a distinct reluctance to sacrifice the familiarity of snow and ice and refuse to transition into spring willingly. Two steps forward and three steps back, spring comes peeking around the corner eventually but winter usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming out the door first.

This day was one of the good ones. Temps were holding steady around 30 degrees which classifies as a "scorcher" in this neck of the woods at this time of the year. Smiling to myself and dreaming of the soon-to-arrive-near-tropical temps of summer, I got on with my day.

Then the phone rang.

It was my sister. She was breathless with excitement and said "Guess where work is sending me next week??? Just guess!! You will NEVER guess!"

Off the top of my head, I flippantly said "Please do NOT tell me they are sending you to Hawaii or something."

She said "Hawaii or something!"

Wow.

And then came the stunner: "You should come with me!"

Huh?

"I am serious, sis! You would only need to pay for your plane ticket and your food. The hotel and car rental are already taken care of!"

Holy smokes!

I stammered out some pretty legitimate excuses but she had some pretty impressive answers for each. Bemused, I said I would look into the details of it and hung up.

Could this even be possible? Surely not.

Researching plane fares online, I was stunned to find one for $652.00, round trip. Oh my.

In the blink of an eye, I had suddenly moved from the realm of the improbable to the completely feasible.

But what would dear husband say?

I called him at work, waking him from his rest period in the process. He listened groggily, asked if we could afford it (well, not really, lol), said sure and then lectured me on the ramifications of getting myself blown apart in a plane crash and the (in his opinion) measly amount of life insurance we have on me at this present time before hanging up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Whatever.

Like I can control THAT anyway.

Unsure of myself, I log onto the shoutbox here at Mrs S and take an impromptu female opinion poll. Should I go? Amazingly to me, my dear friends said yes, encouraging me to step out and be courageous. Oh wow. In my lifetime I have traveled to China to get my daughter, and to South Carolina for my sister's wedding. The only way I survived the trip to China was to follow my husband's directive to stay close to him and not wander off. A world traveler I am not. But I would like to be one....

Then the flurry of phone calls really began. I started tracking down older kids and grandparents, scouting babysitters for a week long outing. All the while, I am dreamily thinking about tropical breezes, island beaches, splashing in the ocean (wow!) and pondering whether or not I would blind people senseless in my bathing suit with my Minnesota-winter-cadaver-white skin. That is, assuming I could even ~find~ my swimsuit. Or bikini. Or fit in either one.

I am starting to get pretty excited though.

Then I connect with my sister again. We try to hammer down a schedule and realize we have to pare a few days off the seven we were hoping for, due to conflicts and schedules back here in the frozen tundra.

Wait a minute.

The cheapest flights we can now find are right around $1100. Major bummer. Way too steep for this girl's pocketbook. We search and look, hunt and dig.

That's about as good as it gets.

Poof! goes the dream. My sister is disappointed. Another time, maybe.

But you know what? I didn't mind.

For the space of a few short hours, I got to realistically dream and imagine a great adventure. And I didn't have to leave home or spend a penny to do it. There were no delayed flights, bad weather, obnoxious travelers, lost luggage, expensive food, or bad guys to worry about.

There was just a happy expectation that something good was coming my way.

And it did.