I was honored to be inc luded in my daughter and soni n-l aw’s recent week long family trip to Flathead Lake near Rollins, Montana. We traveled there in September of last year and I couldn’t wait to return. The mountains are absolutely stunning and the lake is so clear that you can see the bottom of it. The area around it is also a Native American reservation, which helps protect the beauty and serenity of the location.

My flight was leaving the Tulsa airport at 5 a.m., so I left my house at 2 a.m. to make sure I’d have plenty of time to get there. After getting on the Muskogee Turnpike, it began raining so hard that I could barely see the lines between the lanes, not to mention all the road construction that was going on.

I arrived at the airport at 3:30 a.m. with a large wet umbrella to carry around, so I opted to give it to a young lady who’d just got off her plane and was headed to the parking lot. When my plane finally took off, I took my free orange juice and laid back for a nap. Two hours later, I was in Denver, Colo. waiting on my connecting flight to Milwaukee, Wis.

I was asking one of the attendants at the gate about my next flight and when she took my ticket, she complimented me on my unique name. I thought she was talking about the spelling of Amie until she asked me how to pronounce it. “Is it Amelia Vonne? Your mom selected a beautiful name for you.” I thought she had lost it until I realized that my ticket had combined my first and middle name, Amie Lavonne, to one name, Amielavonne. I wanted to assure her that was not my unique name but didn’t have the time to explain, so I left it alone and laughed as I passed by. Everyone probably thought I was the one who had “lost it” instead of her.

I was talking to someone else when a man walked by and asked, “Where are you from? I love your accent.” I get this a lot and most of the time they think I’m from Georgia, even though I don’t think I talk that slow. “Oklahoma,” I said. “Ahh, home of the Thunder,” he hollered back. I didn’t respond because we’d just beaten the Nuggets.

Finally, after making it to my daughter’s home, I went to bed at 8 p.m. because we had a 4-hour flight the next day into Kalispell. It was hard to sleep because I was so excited, but I finally drifted off and woke up a few hours later, which was not enough sleep from my early morning. However, I was still ready to roll.

I was happy and shocked that my 2-yearold grandson, Cooper, did better on the 4-hour flight than most adults would. He has been flying since he was 5 months old, so it’s as common as riding in a car to him. He rode between me and his mom and went to sleep the last 30 minutes, so he looked more refreshed than I did when we landed.

YES & KNOW