Anticipating problems with the weather in NC, we left in plenty of time to get me and Walker to RDU. A quick weekend trip home (Thursday to Sunday)to see Daddy and Sally. Jerry and I had also arranged for my mom’s 59th surprise birthday party. Well……..American Airlines - I have to blame them since I can’t be angry at God or at Mother Nature – we arrived to DFW – Dallas, 45 minutes late. It seemed we had to fly around waiting to land. My connecting flight was not on the departure board. A long wait in the customer service line revealed that flight was canceled due to weather! Okay….placed on stand-by for the next flight out at 8:45PM. 8:45PM – All flights out of DFW cancelled due to weather! No snow, no rain – but I guess there was this thing called ice! And planes do not fly very well with ice on their wings. So…. “A reservation at a nearby hotel?”, she asks. Sure! An hour and a half later – searching for plain ole milk (not found very easily at food establishments in an airport!), waiting outside in the cold with a one year old (thank goodness he thought everything was fun!) only to discover the hotel they assigned us to was booked! So…next plan – I take the shuttle to the car rental place. Wait in line, rent a car and a carseat…guess what? The price tripled when we determined that although leaving from Dallas, but yet wanting to drop of the car in San Antonio. So…back down the stairs, back on the shuttle, back to the airport. I can’t get past the luggage pick-up due to Homeland security, so sleeping in the airport was not an option. It’s 11:00pm. I am using a cell phone that completely broke in half early that day, so for the phone calls I’m making with a baby on my hip, trying to hold the two pieces together and talk took a lot of coordination. My phone is ringing – my parents, my best friend who was supposed to pick me up in San Antonio. (Fortunately I caught her in route to the airport so an hour drive was not in vain!), my husband, my little brother…..one more thing I knew the tears would fall! And then….he must have sensed the desperation, the guy on the other end of the phone at a hotel –where I got the number, I can’t recall – but he said, “ we have one room left. The van will be by to pick you up.” 30 minutes later we load onto the van, arrive at the hotel, $130 less in my bank account – all to get 4 hours of sleep. Walker had long sense drifted off to sleep, but his 25 pounds (no stroller through all of this traveling through the airport either) had my arms quite weakened. Wake up call at 0530, to the airport by 0630, flight left on time at 0740, a rental car waiting (m y husband having pity on me as well), arrival to my dad’s at 1230PM – to the surprise party by 6PM. Whew! What a day! What a trooper Walker was! He was his usual happy-go-lucky, life is fun self! I have so much more empathy for people that fly and the weather shuts down airports. What chaos!
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