A couple of years ago I asked my wife, Carol, what she would like to do for her birthday that was fast approaching.  She said “I don’t know, but make it something different, surprise me”!

So, being the ardent traveler I am, I bought 2 round trip tickets for $150 each to fly us around the U.S. for the entire day to celebrate her birthday.We left OKC at 6:30 a.m. and flew to Chicago (ORD) where we had her birthday breakfast.

Here’s Carol having her birthday breakfast in the Admiral’s Club at Chicago, O’Hare

From ORD we flew to Tampa (TPA) and had brunch. From TPA we flew to Miami (MIA). In the Miami airport outside of security, but still in the airport, there is a hotel. On the 7th floor of the hotel is a restaurant with panoramic views of the runway. It was there where we had her birthday dinner while watching the big jumbo jets land from around the world.

The view from the Miami Airport hotel restaurant that overlooks the runways

Carol getting ready to order birthday dinner at the Miami Airport hotel Restaurant

 Here’s dinner.  Chicken Fettuccine on the left, in the middle is what’s left of conch fritters.  I had the salmon salad–great!

After dinner, we boarded a plane for the flight back to Chicago for a late night snack and then back to OKC where we landed around midnight. 5 flight segments in total. It was 18 hours of being together on her birthday.

On each leg, e.g. OKC-ORD, I gave her a different birthday present with the city codes marked on the outside of the package. Did the same for ORD-TPA, TPA-MIA, MIA-ORD, ORD-OKC legs.  They were small gifts like a Borders gift card, small box of Godivas, etc, etc, you get the idea. 5 presents in all.

Naturally, all the meals were in the airports because of the connection time needed to do that many flights.The fun part of the trip was telling the story to the people we met along the way in airports and on the flights. They really enjoyed hearing about a most unusual birthday present.

For Carol, it was certainly a most unusual present. She couldn’t wait to get back and tell all her friends what an crazy birthday she had!

Steve–

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    
                                                       Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     
San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/