Have you seen the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? We had the real-life reenactment last Thursday. And, let me tell you, it was not nearly as funny as the movie.
Here goes the saga of Noah and my trip down to 'Nawlins' to see Aunt Carly and Uncle Matt....
4:00 am - Thursday, December 11th: Alarm goes off. I wipe the sleep from my eyes, get dressed, and finish loading up the SUV.
4:30 am - Time to wake up Noah, get him dressed and ready
5:00 am - Noah and I (***important note - just the two of us - Connor is on a business trip in California***) load up in the SUV, brave the storm, and head for the airport.
7:00 am - Noah and I load up into our SouthWest flight. All is on time and smooth sailing despite the inclement weather at BWI.
The flight smoothly sails south. It embarks on its decent. The captain comes on and says we have 10 minutes left until landing. At this point, I take out the precious water bottle I have been saving for this exact moment. I have drank nothing all morning. I down the whole thing in a few big swigs. We will be there soon! And, I can go to the bathroom by myself!
At this point, I feel the plane ascend out of its clear downward path to landing, and then, a sinking feeling. Strange. The pilot then comes on and informs us that our flight has been diverted to Nashville, TN. We will land in Nashville in 1.5 hours. They have no details, but we will know more once we land.
Noah is really holding it together nicely - I was so proud! We finally land, about 4 hours later, and a 'spokeswoman' for SouthWest boards our flight. The potent information she soon tells us is enough to bring tears to a grown man (and certainly myself). Our flight has been canceled. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are two flights departing Nashville that day, heading down to MSY (New Orleans). However, further bad news is that one of those two flights is completely full, and the other one only has space for 20 people - the first 20 people who would have boarded our flight (coincidentally, I was #55). The majority of the plane, then, including Noah and myself, were out of luck. Stranded in Tennessee for the foreseeable future. This is the part where I really try to suck it up for Noah's sake, but the tears are just too heavy and they are splashing out like a waterfall.
At this point, the gentleman sitting next to us announces he is getting a rental car and is driving to New Orleans. Without hesitation, I shouted, 'We'll go with you!!" Did I stop to think that my two year old, who had woken this poor man up from his sound sleep at least 6-8 times over the last hour, pulled his hair, kicked his boots and driven him crazy, would really want us to join him? No. I was in survival mode. It seemed like our only hope.
At that point, the couple sitting in front of us asked if they could join us, and a caravan was born! No one complained about having a nap-less two-year old joining...but I was nervous as could be! Matt, our fellow passenger and driver of the caravan, carried my bags for me through the airport - I even caught a bathroom break (thankfully) before we hit the highway.
We head to Enterprise, rent a carseat (which took them 20 minutes to find), and embarked on our 9.45 hour road trip. We hit the highway, full of steam and hope, at 11:00 am, and raced right into a ...parking lot of traffic. This was the point at which the driver lit his first cigarette. I calculated soon after that, that they were coming about one every 30 minutes. Thankfully, he was a fast smoker, and who could complain? He was a true blessing to us that day.
Aunt Carly also loaded up in her car, and she began driving the opposite direction up to meet us. Life saver! Right around the time we connected with her, Noah started loosing his composure. He had held it together allll day! I also was at my wits end... We arrived into New Orleans around 9:00 pm.
In case you were wondering, the story we were told was that the one piece of snow equipment (coincidentally, it snowed for the third time, in the history of New Orleans, the morning of this flight) broke upon use. Oddly, though, Carly watched flight after flight land into MSY right around the time our flight was to have landed....also troubling is that the snow was widely forecasted. It struck me as grossly incompetent that the decision to not land was made 10 minutes prior to landing. I also could not believe they could not help helpless me. Noah fit the bill perfectly when I was talking to customer service about finding other flight options - he was screaming and rolling around on the carpet behind me. It was great! Still, nada - they could do nothing for us, except to assure me I was stuck until at least the following day.
Lest you all think I took this lying down, I wrote a nice long letter to SouthWest. Hopefully it was not too impassioned. I truly felt that traveling alone with a dependent toddler would qualify us for some type of help. Apparently not at SW - where you may not pay any hidden fees, but you also may not land in the city of your choice.
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