A trip that never happened and a flight that was bound to eventually

When we were about 19 or 20, Nick and I were talking about going to London for a couple of months. Not really though, because we'd only really be there for a few weeks, but the trip would take a few months. The plan we worked out was to take a few weeks to drive across the U.S., stopping off in cool locations like Denver, Chicago, and New York. We'd then hop a steamer (or cruise, but it's just more fun and old-timey to say steamer) from New York to London and stay there for a few weeks seeing sights, visiting Paris and Scotland by train, developing accents, and listening to British girls speak with their accents.

At the end of our trip we'd fly back to New York and drive the Southern Route home. This was a prospect that made a then non-drinking Nick say he'd need to get "fall-down drunk." For you see, Nick has never flown before.

The trip never happened of course. The logistics of such a trip (and we looked into all of it), to say nothing of the expense, kept us from living out our dream and Nick from facing his fear.

It wasn't always a fear. He was the sixth kid of seven, a recipe for not a lot of long-distance family travel. I think it started to dawn on him in his late teens that he'd probably be afraid of flying and he just went with it. He would say there was nothing that would get him on a plane except a lot of alcohol. This morning he was proved wrong. Money, it seems, will do it too.

I took him to the airport on my way to work this morning so he could fly to Indiana for his work. He wasn't nervous at all at the prospect of flying, though he did ask me for any tips I could offer. I told him to not worry about noises cause planes are always loud, and he waved it off, clearly having realized he's not actually scared to fly.

Still, I felt like it was his first day of school and I want the little guy to have a good time. It's important to point out that, though I say "little guy," Nick is about a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than me.

I'm excited that this might open up the prospect of him flying other places, potentially with me. Though I imagine an airplane is going to be a very uncomfortable ride for a guy his size. I'm average height and I find planes tight. Good luck with the leg room buddy.