I spent much of the summer traveling from California to Florida via Las Vegas for a couple of days and Atlanta for airport nightmares. While the beach was wonderful, the world was busy trying to keep up with terrorists. The terrorists are winning. In Las Vegas, we were told all the major airports in S.Cal and Utah and Nevada were closed for an unknown reason and they didn't know when it would be back up. Then in New York the same thing happened apparently.

It turned out to only be for three hours, but no one knew why the backup system didn't kick in, and then there were the alarms. In our very nice hotel in Vegas, The Westin, alarms went on for hours, literally, with some annoying voice telling us not to worry. The same thing happened in one of the airports. Alarms so loud and shrill you wanted to scream yourself, with a voiceover saying "We have an emergency reported, go on about your business." Huh? No one had a clue what that meant.

Everywhere we went it said "High Alert." This was not too comforting, and the only true relaxing spot was in Florida where military planes flew overhead while we were at the beach. There is an air force base near where we were staying, so I just hoped the pilots had lots of training. The fun was watching the dolphins swim on our last night there.

When we finally arrived back home, the Israeli War was still going on, and my small town seemed oblivious to world events or even those of our country. Gas was much cheaper in Florida. We were surprised to see the hurricane damage from a year ago, and realize the media had focused so much on New Orleans you'd never really know how bad it got everywhere unless you see it for yourself. Blue roofs everywhere and these people are not coming back.

The terrorist plots in Canada and Britain came to light after we got home, and then the tv shows started in (such as "When the Levees Broke" which was amazing, as well as the shows on 9/11. I also finished reading the 9/11 Commission report. I was scheduled to fly home to CA from Baltimore on 9/11 and it's a miracle I wasn't in a plane. Just watching the shows tells me I have PTSD to it all.

These are weird times we live in, and I only hope our children and grandchildren live as safe a life as we have. Meanwhile, others I know had more relaxing vacations, and had I not had to spend time in airports, mine would have been somewhat better. I'm just glad to be here today.