By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Heart
I simply asked Elsa to let us go. She said “NO!”
How is it that I seem to find myself in these “traveling adventures” that give me quite the fodder for my column but leave my nerves a bit frazzled?
And so it was this week. When we were headed home from Tampa, Tropical Storm Elsa was headed straight for us. She was making promises as she gathered strength. “Ready or not, here I come!”
By Monday night she was a hurricane.
I spoke for 20 minutes with David, a 26-year veteran with Southwest Airlines. He looked at the weather maps. He told me that there were no flight cancellations in the area where Elsa was traveling.
He checked the non-stop flights for Wednesday, if our non-stop flight was canceled on Tuesday night. Plenty of seats available. I could change at no charge. He said he thought my chances were good to make it home Tuesday night.
I took David’s advice and waited. David was wrong.
Chuck and I were down in Florida without a flight home. Chuck had a Wednesday morning tee time.
At 8:00 Tuesday morning the alert from Southwest came in a text … all flights after 5:00 were canceled. Our flight was at 7:30.
Now what? Check direct flights available. Remember those available seats on a direct flight?
They disappeared.
I searched on my phone for the “best” one-stop, with a layover. Houston? Baltimore? Seriously?
This two-hour tour was becoming more like a binge-watch of a really bad reality TV show. Five hours. Seven hours. Middle of the night arrivals. Ugh and double ugh.
Finally booked a flight that took us to Ft. Lauderdale. We got there in less than an hour. Yes!
Flight delayed to Indy. Of course it was.
You realize when you get to an airport you must wear a mask. Mask went on at noon on Wednesday.
We had dinner at Starbucks. Not a lot of choices in a small airport. I might suggest the pre-packaged protein pack for future reference.
We had the sweetest all-female crew. Yes, even our pilot was female. They made it fun. They welcomed us to the Love Plane. The flight attendant said, “Fasten your seatbelts, this Boeing is going!”
Oh, and about Elsa? At 7:30 on Tuesday night she was a NO SHOW. She stood us up. Even her “scheduled” arrival between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. was more of a tiptoe in and sprinkle a bit rather than Category 1-force winds with flooding.
We arrived in Indy about 9:30 on Wednesday night and guess what welcomed us. A monsoon.
Seriously, I can’t make up this stuff. Oh yes, our masks were removed a little before 10:00. Thank you, Elsa – at least you wrote my column.