Reading signs carefully can save you a lot of headache. Especially when you’re traveling. That was a lesson we almost learned the hard way when we flew from Knoxville, Tennessee to Fayetteville, Arkansas during our American vacation from global volunteering. It was stressful enough as it was; it could have been much worse, i.e., a missed flight — particularly since we had a delay, a tight connection, and all manner of frantic drama on tap.

Speaking of reading signs, there are plenty of signs at airports warning about not bringing weapons aboard a plane. As if anybody really needed such a warning. But apparently some people do, Because in the security line at Knoxville’s airport, there are about a dozen photos posted of guns that have been nabbed trying to sneak through — along with the names of the TSA agents who caught them.

It’s got to be one of the easiest open-book tests in the world; and yet quite a few folks are failing it like Fox TV hosts taking a high school civics quiz. Surely there are not that many people, if any, who honestly don’t know about the rules. Most likely, these are individuals who simply feel entitled to be exceptions. And although we haven’t seen evidence of it anywhere else but Knoxville, we doubt that this is the only place it happens. More likely, this is just the one place that advertises it and commends the alert security personnel.

Once we’re past the gun gauntlet, we get the unpleasant surprise that our plane will be departing an hour behind schedule. This is particularly bad news, as we already had a rather narrow connection in Charlotte, North Carolina (there was no direct flight to Fayetteville, at least not within our less-than-billionaire bankroll).

After making some inquiries at the counter, we learn that there is a plane to Charlotte leaving one hour earlier, and we consider trying to get shifted to that one instead (which the airline is quite willing to do). Unfortunately, there is only one seat available, and the other one of us would have to shoot for standby. Not the most favorable of options, so we pass. The other option would have been to get rerouted on an overnighter from Charlotte to Dallas, then catch a flight to Fayetteville the following morning. That didn’t sound terribly enticing either, so we decide to just grin — or grit or teeth — and bear it, hoping for the best.

At last our plane boards, and we’re able to see our bags being hauled up into its cargo hold, which is reassuring. And we’re off. As we’re approaching Charlotte the flight attendant announces, at our request, that some passengers have to make a mad dash for a connection, so would all others please remain seated until we are off. And to our relief, most if not all of them do just that. So we utter our heartfelt thank yous as we shuffle past them.

Charlotte Douglas Airport is laid out like the Vetruvian Man — except it’s more like a Vetruvian octopus, with splayed limbs stretching out seemingly to infinity. With only half an hour to meet up with our next ride, we have to blitz like a famous former football player whom we won’t name, in a TV commercial sprinting through an airport — except we do it while each bearing an elephant’s load of baggage. Landing at Gate E26, which is almost all the way down to the end of the most remote tentacle, we have to make it way back down to B14, which is just about as far removed as it can be, and is our departure gate. Or so we’ve been led to believe. Ha ha. We had been warned that the gate was subject to change; evidently, the constellations are just lining up weirdly today all around.

But with the latest information in hand, we start zooming toward B14. Unfortunately there are many other people headed that way too — just about everyone on the planet, it seems. And somehow we become separated. Kimberly continues to B14, figuring we’ll rendezvous there. Dennis, however, pauses to check a flight board and sees that the departure for Fayetteville is now scheduled for E40. Which is all the way back down past where we just came from. (He happens to have no cell service at the moment, so we can’t contact each other.)

So he hightails it back down in that direction, still seeing no trace of his spouse, who for all he knows may have been detained by DHS agents because they were suspicious characters. He passes three moving walkways, only two of which are operational, natch. He runs until he’s exhausted, and then just walks as fast as he can, dammit dammit dammit, panting and sweaty, toward the promised land.

So, dear reader, can you spot the big problem here? In all our frenetic forging ahead, he sort of forgot that we were spending a few minutes in the state of North Carolina. Which just happens to have a city named (drumroll, please) Fayetteville. And this realization doesn’t dawn until he makes it all the way down to E40. (If he’d taken enough time to compare flight numbers, he could have spared himself this “leg” of the day’s big workout.)

Then he checks another board and doesn’t spot our flight until he whips out his phone and compares flight numbers. That’s when he discovers that our destination is actually listed as “Northwest Arkansas”. Which makes sense. Even though the airport is in Fayetteville, it serves a quad city area including Rogers, Bentonville, and Springdale. And the flight for NWA will be leaving from — you guessed it — Concourse B, all the way back down where he was before. The gate has been changed to B4, but that’s only slightly closer.

So he’s off at a gallop again, even though he figures there’s no way they’re going to make the connection. He still needs to hook up with his wife before she gets any more worried than she probably is already.

So it’s all the way back to B4, where Kimberly is standing out front waiting to reel him in. And — would you believe — due to some kind of problem with the elves operating B4, the gate has been changed yet again: this time to C2, which is not terribly far, but around a corner a bit.

Expecting our plane to be zipping off without even blowing us a kiss, we instead come to a halt at C2 to find the passengers still waiting in line. In fact, we still have a wait of about 20 minutes ahead of us. It seems our second flight is late too, the gods be praised.

With no further hitches, we land at the Fayetteville of our choice, and — glory be — our bags arrive too. Interesting thing is, the baggage claim is located in a public access area, so anyone could have just sauntered in off the street and made off with our earthly goods. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

Dennis’s sister Willene and her husband Paul are waiting to pick us up, and we go back to their house where we’ll be spending a few days before we continue westwards, making our way back to Southeast Asia. And being careful to read all the signs meticulously along the way.

Events occurred 5/5-6/2025