Up, up and away ?

Korean Air Flight 24, dep. San Francisco at 2:40 pm today. Spent most of last night packing the last bags, and sorting through neglected paperwork, including the emptying of old receipts and my fishing license out of my wallet. This morning -- scrambling with loose ends an hour before leaving for the airport -- got word of the railway bombings in Mumbai (our destination) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1731631.cms and decided to scrub the mission for now, fearing perhaps foolishly that the city could explode into the violence of reprisals, as has happened often enough elsewhere in India and the world. So here we sit at my folks' place, quite safe from the roughness present just beyond the boundaries of our normal lives. Told the kids that the airplane had engine trouble. They decided that it's just as well to wait for a plane with reliable engine, since you can't just pull over to the side of the road in mid-flight. Our alibi sure beat explaining the nature of covert terrorism and of brutal mobs to such little people. At some point the veil will certainly rise.

Looks now that the event was horrific for those attacked, and their loved ones, but didn't trigger an unhinging of the city. So go ahead and in hindsight call us paranoid.

We have reservations for next Tuesday, the 18th -- and will make the most of the time with a few days camping, hiking, swimming like we'd hoped to do in June.

Not foreseeing this change in plans, we almost bought a nonrefundable ticket for travel from Mumbai to Udaipur next week. I'm glad that we didn't, since we'd have lost it -- but i will be digging through the trash for my fishing license tonight.

Ajay