Leaving on a jet plane …

Oh yeah, after a long break, I’m back. Sorry to the handful of people that read this on a consistent basis.

I’m heading back to Mexico for the second time in less than 11 months tonight. I’ll be there until Sept. 1. My father and I will arrive first in Guadalajara then on to Mexico City.

My trip has already had a huge stumbling block, Mexicana Airlines.

If there is anything I’ve learned about travel, without actually traveling, it is for the rest of my life I’ll always research the financial stability of an airline before I book with them, especially an international flight.

Since I purchased the tickets in June, I’ve had a stopover added and have had my flight out moved back from 11:30 a.m. to 7:45 p.m.

Of course, if I was a wise traveler, I would have checked to see if the company was fit to travel with. I’ve learned it really isn’t.

Mexicana Airlines filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection and briefly stopped booking new flights earlier this month. Since then, they have been able to move flights or straight up cancel them. If you’ve already booked with them, you have no choice but to accept it.

No matter how much trouble the airline has given me over the past month, it will be small and trivial compared to the wonderful time I’m about to experience.

I promised my parents, long ago, I would always visit my family in Mexico. I began that promise last year by going to Mexico City and seeing my cousins and my aunts there. However, not all my family is located within the Federal District.

Now I’ll be completing the second half of that promise as I fly into Guadalajara tonight at 1 a.m. local time.

I’ve meet many family members over the years, most of them I’ve never seen in person – the wonders of Facebook. It’ll be wonderful to see many in 3-D and hear their voice as opposed to an IM.

I’ll also be going to my parents’ home pueblos and see where they grew up this coming weekend. My mother’s birthday is August 24 and she would have been 70 this year so it makes this pilgrimage special to me.

I’m nervous in a way because of the unknown, which also makes it exciting. I don’t know what to expect for the most part.

I had a wonderful time last year and look for an equally terrific time over the next 12 days. You can follow along too; meet who I meet and experience what I experience.

Except for any change of plans by Mexicana Airlines, those are mine.