So sayeth young Nyan Thomas earlier this month as he jetted from London, to Chicago, to Iowa City, and back again. He’s always been a great flyer – he’s been airborne since he was about four months old – and even as he has become more alert, and more of a handful in some ways, he’s still pretty much a pure pleasure to travel with.

Here’s the lad on our flight from London to Chicago, including a nice long nap.

We had a somewhat lengthy layover in Chicago; our hero passed the time by running around, chatting up strangers, offering grapes to fellow passengers, etc. Standard stuff. Here:

Near the end of that video, when Nyan says ‘I look at bike, Daddy,’ he’s referring to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle we had earlier come across – a chopper that was inexplicably just sitting there in the terminal. Nyan was oohing and ahh-ing over it, and some dude standing there said ‘Go ahead, he can get on it!’ So up Nyan went. Then the dude, who I had thought was somehow in charge of the bike, walked off. Oh well. Nyan had a blast:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And here’s the boy on the plane before we took off for Iowa. Always looking to see what’s going on, this one:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Nyan and Daddy flew back to London alone as Mommy was flying separately due to work. Obviously it’s much easier to fly with two adults, but the lad and I made it work just fine, in spite of an unexpected four-hour wait at the airport in Moline, waiting for a delayed puddle-hopper to take us to Chicago.  

How’d we pass the time? We ran:

And we ate (and looked at skeletons; no I’m not sure what he’s talking about):

And we cooked cheese in the oven and made ice cream:

It took forever to get out of Moline, to the point that we had literally 45 minutes to get from one plane to the next – including changing terminals and going through security. If you’ve ever been to O’Hare, you know that’s just not possible. But we were gonna try – so Daddy strapped Nyan into his stroller, threw on his heavy backpack, slung a heavy shoulder bag over his shoulder and ran ran ran through the terminals. We made it by about five minutes, exhausted and winded but happy. (Well, that was Daddy. Nyan was having a blast. ‘I driving a race car!’ he kept exclaiming.)

The flight was uneventful, which is always good; Nyan slept foir much of it. Our luggage didn’t make the plane, but we did, and Mommy was waiting for us there. All’s well that ends well.