After a week-long trip to the East Coast, I've discovered the truth in the old phrase, "There's no place like home."
My time spent there was great, but getting there and getting back made the trip a living nightmare.

It started out from McCook just fine. I arrived in Omaha with no problem. I left Omaha after a 15-minute mechanical flight delay. In Detroit I was delayed by a plane change due to mechanical problems. I arrived in Baltimore two hours late. I dealt with that. My eldest and I drove the 12-hour trip down to Georgia on Tuesday and drove back Thursday night. We spent most of Friday sleeping and vegging out.

Saturday, we did a little shopping and, towards evening, Shane took me and his girlfriend, Rachel, out to a nice Italian restaurant. Then we made our way to a rural part of Maryland to attend an annual Halloween Haunted Forest.

It all started out well. We walked through the hallway of doom -- a tunnel of cloth pressing in on us due to the large fans they had strategically placed on the outside of the walkway. A little poke in the ribs at the end of the trek made me let off a little squeal.

Vampires jumping out of graves and other scary creatures would cause an occasional expletive, but nothing frightened me quite as much as the "Mine Shaft of Doom."

The moment we started down the moist path into the "mine shaft," a voice began to chant, "Get Out! GET OUT!"

I simply laughed it off.

Then the candles that had been lighting our path were gone. My son had put me in the front of the two of them. I was feeling my way along the dirt walls. I turned a corner and suddenly a white head appeared before me. I screamed, not a groan or a curse, but a real live girly scream that would have put any movie scream to shame. I turned toward my son and tried to retreat. He stood there like a marble statue, not allowing me to move.

I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and shook him with all my might. With tears stinging the back of my eyes, I whispered in a dangerously quiet voice, "Shane, I don't think we're supposed to go this way." It didn't scare him.

"It's the only way you can go," Shane was finally able to say through his laughter.

He took me by the shoulders and turned me around, pushing me to the end of the mine shaft.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the part of my trip that got my adrenaline flowing fastest.

That came with my trip back to McCook. I was supposed to leave Baltimore at 12:47 p.m. and arrive in Omaha at around 4:15. After a six-hour layover in Omaha, my itinerary included a trip back to McCook, ending at 10 p.m.

It didn't quite work out that way.

I got to Baltimore and another mechanical problem was announced. An hour later, we finally got on our way. I arrived in Detroit and found out I had missed my plane by no more than five minutes.

I checked with the attendant at the check in desk. They had booked a plane for me from Detroit to Minneapolis to Omaha, leaving Detroit at 9:30 p.m. and arriving in Omaha at 11:30 -- an hour and a half after I was supposed to be in McCook.

By this time I was tired and irritable. I asked the ticketing agent if her airline planned to pay for my motel room and the extra fare I would have to pay to get a new ticket from Omaha to McCook.

She looked down her long nose at me and replied, "It is our responsibility to get you to Omaha."

Fortunately, they were able to do that, but just barely. In Minneapolis, I had 15 minutes to get from the Detroit flight to my Omaha flight. Luckily I did have seven hours in Detroit to make arrangements for my overnight stay in Omaha and my flight back to McCook the next day.

It's like a friend of mine said, "If you want to fly in the worst way, fly N--------."