Ah, summer.
Lazy days on the beach, toes dipped in pools, a light breeze over the
lake, or a splash in the stream. Also,
hour-long lines at security, bags going missing, four dollar bottles of water
and screaming kids. As you read this, I
will just be landing in London, England, and I can only pray as I write that
what happened to me recently on my return from Jackson, WY, to New York does
not have a repeat performance.
Obviously, I’ve lived to tell the tale. Only just….
Flight one on my return goes from Jackson to
Denver. Jackson airport is like a hotel
lounge—it rather lulls you into a false sense of security. And when I was upgraded to Business/First,
what could possibly go wrong? Hail in
Denver was what went wrong. And since
Jackson is a small airport, taking small planes, which in turn have small fuel
tanks, we couldn’t just hang about in the sky over Denver waiting for the hail
to move on. Nope, instead, we moved on—to
Grand Island, Nebraska.
One and a half hours later, having been
assured all flights were delayed so
our connections would still be good, we got back into the air and made our way
to Denver and flight two. I had an hour first—enough
time to indulge at Rocky Mt. Chocolate Factory—got my second upgrade to
Business/First for the four hour flight to LaGuardia, and settled in next to a
gentleman, who happened also to be going on to East Hampton. Delightful.
Until the flight attendant announced we
didn’t have a pilot, so we all had to get off once more.
Our pilot had a family crisis so United was
working its way down its pilot list.
This list might have been one pilot long because none could be found in
the area; either they were stuck elsewhere or couldn’t get in, in time, or had
already done too many hours. Visions of sleeping forever on the floor of Denver
airport danced across my tiring brain.
But, aha! New flight put on for eight
a.m. next morning, hotel vouchers available at the Customer Service desk….
Except the Customer Service desk already had
about one thousand people in line, a line which zig-zagged in front of said
desk before making its way down the entire Terminal B concourse. Amazing how you get chatty with strangers in such
a situation. After considering that the
line was going nowhere fast, and that all airport hotels were soon to announce
they had no rooms, smarty pants (my middle name) pulled out her phone, rang
United, and got through within minutes. I
checked in for the morning’s flight and got a 10% discount on a La Quinta room
reachable via shuttle. Better than a
voucher, I’d say, and the shuttle was waiting when I got there.
Now there was one thing I wasn’t so smart
about, and that was the contents of my carry-on: chargers, jewelry, medications, the above
mentioned chocolates, and the contents of my Jackson fridge. For some unknown reason,
I had decided to transport home: one
part cucumber, one smoked trout (luckily in sealed pouch), nuts, and an apple
that could have passed for a pumpkin.
Available at the front desk was a toothbrush (one row of bristles,
perfect for a baby) and a sachet smear of toothpaste. In the room was soap. And what a room! Giant living room, separate bedroom and
bathroom. Also, no coffee for the coffee
maker, television blaring from the lobby, heater in the bedroom so you couldn’t
possibly sleep with it on, traffic noise from outside, and where were the
lovely, fluffy bathrobes? Not at La
Quinta! For dinner, I rather idiotically
ate chocolate and the giant apple.
Freezing to death after my shower, with no spare blanket, I wrapped
myself in two dry bath towels, set the alarm for five a.m., and tried to
sleep. Who was I kidding? Chocolate has more caffeine than a cup of
coffee, dumb-dumb. And my face, which went without eye cream and face cream for
the first time in fifty-six years, felt as if it might crack. In this state, further enhanced by the pain
in recovering broken shoulder, my phone vibrated at precisely 2.40 a.m.
Luckily, I looked at it. United announcing that the 8 a.m. flight was
now an 11 a.m. flight. This meant
arrival in NYC, with the two hour time difference, at 5p.m Memorial weekend
Friday.
But I’m awake! So I got myself onto an alternative flight at
8.10 a.m., one of the last 2 seats into Newark.
Sat in an exit row seat between two lovely guys who tried to convince me
that, as it was now the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I really didn’t want to
continue on to East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway, otherwise known as
the free parking lot.
Oh, but I did.
My daughter, bless her, made something like
five different jitney reservations for me, arranged for a car to collect me at
Newark, take me into NYC, have a sandwich delivered to my apartment, and I was
able to make reservation Numero Dos—one hour later. Traffic not bad on the LIE, and she had
dinner waiting for me on arrival. The
angel!
Oh, and my checked bag? Well, I knew it wouldn’t be on my flight so
went directly to the luggage people on arrival at Newark and had it sent
straight to my home. Easy as pie….
And you can read far less miserable stories
at
Twitter: @andidowning
https://twitter.com/AndiDowning
