The mini-holiday was lovely – sunshine, music, great company and new friends. And a whole lotta goofy-stupid stuff* thrown in for good measure. Bonus to get to lie in the sun on a Caribbean beach for a day, while drinking buckets of cold beer and people watching… in JANUARY.
Mother Nature, however, wanted to make sure we all know who’s really in charge. Flights home were rather challenging – and i’ve just returned to my home-jammies after spending almost 24 hours in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport – slammed on Monday with a gnarly winter storm.
i’m beat, but still quite happy. That’s the sign of a good vacation…
The entire airport shut down Monday around 10:00 pm, and we got booked onto a direct flight home for 7:30 am Tuesday…. Skipping details for now, here’s a fun text thread i had with The Boy today while trying to keep him and The Girl up to date on my whereabouts.
0915
daisyfae: Charlotte is still fucking us hard. Still trying to get out. Got a flight booked to C-town that might go. Rental car reserved, so we may make it home tonight.
The Boy: Who’s Charlotte?
daisyfae: The airport. We didn’t make it to the ‘refugee concourse’ in time last night to get the Red Cross cots, so we rigged a shelter of cardboard boxes. Bastards wouldn’t let us build a fire.
The Boy: Thanks again, Terrorists! Jesus. You can’t even have a good ol’ bum fire in an airport. Did they even offer the regulation size oil drum trash can?
daisyfae: No. But Studley McRocklegs** MacGyvered a hot dog cooker out of some other guys phone charger. Fucker was sleeping. Serves him right…
The Boy: Survival of the nerdiest. That was in the Bible, right?
1100
daisyfae: On a plane. Will text when i land somewhere. If the roads suck, may have to stay at your place tonight.
The Boy: No problem.
1430
daisyfae: Landed! Now we play ‘find the luggage’ and see if i still have a rental car.
The Boy: Can’t believe you made it. If you can’t get a rental, I can come get you, but gotta warn you, my rates are higher than those Blue Cab driving hajiis.
daisyfae: Got a car reserved – unless they sold it to a higher bidder. But we smell worse than any cab driver ever could. Will that get us a discount?
The Boy: Potentially. I have a rule – if you smell worse than my car, you get to ride at cost. And by the way, do you think homeland security has been privy to this conversation? I’ve mentioned ‘terrorists’, ‘Jesus’, ‘the Bible’ and now hajiis…
image from here. cute midwestern refugee girl…
* One example ship-side: Elevator arrives, door opens and a pile of people are sitting on the floor, being silly and drinking umbrella drinks, beer and champagne. They invited us to their “Elevator Party” – and we played along… So much more fun than the usual boring elevator ride…
** Not his real name…
Well, welcome home. Never mind these tales of traveling nightmares. Let’s seem some pics of blue water, hokay?
alright, already… i get it, I GET IT! You want some damn pictures… can’t i unpack first?
The Boy is safe mentioning terrorists and hajiis. Just so long as he doesn’t mention Wikilea – – -AGGGHHHHH I’ll come quietly!
excellent point! i’ll start baking you a cake with a file in it…
I’m so glad you had a great time! If you’re vacation high survived being trapped in an airport for a day, it must have been a damn good time.
Love The Boy. He has his mom’s sense of humor, plus he’s kind (comforted his dad in his time of need). If I had a daughter I’d beg you to let her marry him. Hell. I’ll have one of my son’s castrated and still beg you for a marriage contract.
he’s a good kid. makes my brain hurt sometimes, though. and the text horsing around helped me keep from going batty with the travel stuff… that and being very silly with my travel mate.
Welcome back! All of us who live vicariously through you have been bored silly. Glad you had a great time (even with Charlotte, the slut.)
thanks! if you want some ‘real’ vicarious, howz about taking on the horrific back ache and head cold from hell that i have acquired… methinks sleeping on the airport floor is going to continue to take a gentle toll for a few days. and shipboard germs? bring ‘em….
Glad you made it home safely. And with your good humour intact!
it was a nice break from routine, that’s for sure. the sunshine was a bit of magic, too. and surprisingly, with all of the nightmarish frustration at the airport, we only saw a couple cases of tempers flaring… the airline personnel were patient, we were all commiserating, sharing flight news, and trying to help out where possible… could have been worse. i think a week of that and i’d have gotten pretty cranky.
Welcome back to Real Life. Sucks don’t it?
so far? it pretty much blows… but i’m glad to have had a post-holiday break. good time of year to get away…
What is it with you and closed airports/cancelled flights daisyfae? Shame there wasn’t a big cruise ship you could hop on instead….um.. wait a minute…
i have a gift… statistically, if you travel enough, this shit is going to happen a lot. the closed airports, that is. the ship thing? you have to work at that! and there is no “Plan C”. there never is. i can only do “Plan B” and then i stop trying!
Not his real name? It’s a poorer world for that fact.
i am, however, dating Blast Hardcheese. met him online. does that help?
I guess Thick McRunFast didn’t make the cut on your Match.com perusals. But I’m glad to hear Studly McRockLegs is still around.
Thick McRunFast? i couldn’t keep up with him…
Seems like there have been more travel nightmares lately than is absolutely necessary. I mean, Europe before Christmas, now the East coast? Maybe it is the goddess’ way of telling us to stay home. I’m already trying to put some good vibes on the trip Jim and I are planning next November.
air travel – which was NOT accessible to the general rabble like me just a couple decades ago – has become such an expectation, that we freak out when it doesn’t work right. the reality is that we’re defying gravity – on a massive scale – on a daily basis. if things get screwed up like this when the weather is bad? beats the hell out of getting news of another superliner crashing into the suburbs of chicago… here’s to happy trails for you and Jim! and i take it you’re not doing Spain this year? :-)
Actually, we are. But not in the same way as last time!! We are flying in to Madrid and taking the fast train to Malaga where we will spend three days before we get on the boat and sail through the Straits of Gibraltar and across the Atlantic to Florida.
sounds lovely! looking forward to hearing all about this! sailing the atlantic? amazing!
Why can we never get snowed in at home….as I put off packing for a trip to the Bay Area tomorrow.
So glad you and the travel mate got home safely.
hope you got your stuff successfully packed, and that the weather cooperates for a happy trip! and yes, it seems that weather is almost always non-cooperative. but i’ve still got a happy post-vacation buzz, despite the travel quirks, and a nasty-ass headcold…. that i probably caught from sleeping on the floor of a germ-infested airport!
Where do you live carlae, that you never get snowed in at home? We do that here on a regular basis.
I live in Seattle, where if we do get snow the city comes to a complete stand still. Actually when I made my comment yesterday we had about 4 inches of snow that was rapidly melting. oh well
Bloody hell, I might have been around the corner from you in the same airport. My gang and I sat there hour after hour pleading and begging to get home. At least they had booze.
Glad you made it our.
Sausage….
We were in the sports bar on concourse E from the time they closed the airport at 10pm until midnight, then decamped for the Concourse D refugee camp. After i bootlegged a flight to a nearby city, we were parked in Concourse B for most of Tuesday… wish i’d have known you were there. would have bought you a beer!
I come too, next time. Minus the travel angst. Mmm. Come to think about it. Last time I travelled – with you – we had delays and disasters. Mmm. Need to think about this.
What disasters?!?! I had ‘Plan B’, damn it! I knew it was gonna be ok… except for that part when nursemyra asked, “so, what if the ferry doesn’t sail today?” and i said “i have no fucking idea what to do after that… “
Dais! Long time no write. Glad you survived the snowy mishagas — I’m going South next month but I’m probably going to d.r.i.v.e. and make a longer time of it — rentin’ a hybrid and as long as the roads hold up, I won’t have to do battle with various degrees of airport nastiness. Fingers crossed.
Blais! You’re back! Driving provides options – you can adjust timing and route to avoid what needs avoiding… but i can’t stand being in a car for more than 8 hours – and will risk occasional stuckage in airports to cover the turf faster… fingers crossed for your trip!
Homeland Security was all over that text conversation.
Whaddaya mean Studley McRocklegs isn’t his real name?
Probably. i hope they lock him up for a bit. The Boy makes my brain hurt sometimes. i could use the vacation. Well, the McRockLegs part is made up…
I was wondering what happened to Studley McRockLegs…Glad to see you’re both out enjoying yourselves. Who better to hang out with while stuck in airports..
Studley is still around! He’s a good travel buddy… we made the best of it. Sometimes not easy, and we sure didn’t smell very nice by the time we got home… but it was fun!
Glad your mini-holiday was not hampered by travel woes. On my way to Toronto, my flight was delayed by three hours. Of course. The plane was parked at the gate, as scheduled, but there was no crew. I arrived in Cleveland on time, but when I’m en route to go sightseeing? Delayed. And then there was the hour wait in Customs. There were three monks behind me in line, and something tells me they weren’t in any rush to go sightseeing.
you are correct – i’ve been VERY lucky that my travel delays have not really gotten in the way of any sightseeing-like activities. while it’s a drag to be delayed coming home, it would have been worse if it would have taken time away from the fun stuff… and at least the monks weren’t whining about the pain in the butt travel stuff, complaining about TSA gropes and all that stuff…