Life is An Adventure

The Weekend That Would Not End

Travels With Lola

Flight 477 - To H-E-Double Hockey Sticks and Back

I Just Want To Go Home

These were all possible blog titles that were mulling around in my head to describe our weekend...intrigued, aren't you.

As you will recall, I had to take Shaggy and Tigger to Florida on Thursday to spend March break at the compound with the in-laws, Fil & Millie. Lola came with me. And if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know that when it comes to air travel...or really just any type of travel, the Jaj Family seems to have a curse. You can read about past adventures here, here and here and let's not forget that I left our plane tickets at home last year when we were headed to China. So this past weekend really should have been no surprise to any of us.

We made it to the airport on Thursday without any glitches...other than having to walk eleventy-seven miles from the parking garage to the actual terminal...and was it Lola who said, 'There's our bad luck for the trip'... ? Cursed us, she did.

Had an uneventful flight and made it to the compound safely.

As promised, Fil & Millie pulled out the maps as soon as we got there to show Lola where everything was, and Millie drew me a map on how to get to the shopping. I'm a mall magnet - they have a pull on me that is indescribable...plus this is my third trip to the compound and shopping...but we all would have been disappointed if no maps had been drawn at all.

On Friday we took off for shopping and really gave the Floridian economy a boost. 8 hours and 4 stores later, we were tuckered. That is not a typo, we really only made it to 4 stores.

We spent the evening organizing our luggage and trying to get everything to fit. The orginal plan was to pack a smaller suitcase inside a larger suitcase (for me anyway...I think Lola was just going to bring an empty large suitcase), but Millie called before we left and said we should try to come with just carry-on luggage, and we could use their big suitcases to come home...ahem...by big suitcases, she meant one average size suitcase and 3 carry-ons. So I ended up leaving half of my purchases in Florida for the in-laws to bring home with them by car in April. But that also meant I only had to claim half of my purchases, so it was a good thing after all.
Plus there were tornado watches all night for our area. My fear of tornadoes is second only to spiders, so I didn't get a whole lotta sleep as I listened to the wind and rain and sleet, waiting for our impending demise.


Do you like Lola's airport issued make-up bag? She was quite proud of it and showed it to everybody wherever we went. It was free.

Friday morning, Millie got us to the airport on time and once there, we discovered that there was a major winter storm happening in the northeast. 'Member when I said that I'd be laughing at yous all if you got snow while we were in Florida? Can I take that back? I really didn't mean it, honest. We were told that our flight to Cleveland was canceled - we could go the next day, or we could fly to Houston and then to the Great White North, arriving at 8:something that night (the current time was 7:30 am), or fly to Newark and then to the Great White North, arriving at 6:something that night. We opted for Newark. We should have just gone to the beach. So we sat around and waited for 3 hours until our flight was scheduled to leave.
We had a bit of trouble landing in Newark, so we were re-routed to Dulles in Washington and sat on the tarmac for 3 1/2 hours. This is the Dulles airport from our view of the window.
This is the giant cloud that passed by overhead, bringing wind at 39 knots with it. I have no idea how strong 39 knots is, but it is enough to shake a plane full of people.
This is Lola and me being bored and goofy. It's a self-portrait. Our seat-mate asked us if we had gone to school together because she could see us getting into trouble...
I have to say that being stuck on an airplane for 3 1/2 hours with complete strangers, you get a glimpse of their true personalities. And some of the people on our flight were not very nice. They complained about everything there was to complain about and got other passengers riled up, they had nothing good to say about the pilot who was only doing his job and had no control over the weather; we were very fortunate that our seat mate was a very sweet lady who incidently shares the same name as Millie. Plus she has a daughter-in-law with my name. Go figure. We were finally given to okay to fly onwards to Newark...these clouds were pretty.
These were the Clouds of Doom. I have seriously never been in so much turbulance in all of my life. I had to concentrate and do lamaze breathing to keep from getting airsick and using the barf bag...literally half the plane was airsick. Every time I peeked through my eyelids and looked out the window, I could see lights below and I thought for sure we'd be able to land...it seemed like we circled the airport for an eternity, and it was probably a good 45 minutes of flying through that same stupid cloud. The wind was 60 miles an hour. And we were in a tin can. At one point, the flight attendant asked everyone to reach up and open the air thingies to get the air circulating and help those passengers who needed it...I honestly thought she was going to ask us to reach up and get the oxygen mask thingies to put over our faces.
We finally landed at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, part of the airport is a military base, and the other part is for commercial flights. But since we were on a Continental airplane, and Continental does not have a gate at this particular airport, we had to get special permission from one of the other airlines to board at their gate. It was 8:30pm when we landed and after 10:30pm when we were finally able to leave the plane. In the meantime, there was a group of university girls and their coaches who were on a softball team travelling with us. One of the girls had an anxiety attack (she was a nervous flyer to begin with) and went into shock. Luckily this all happened once we were safely on the ground and the EMT's were called and were able to take her to the hospital. The other girls fed off the frenzy and the flight attendants used all but one tank of oxygen on the girls. We were out of food and water and pop and juice, so the alcohol was brought out. Lola and I just looked at each other...the difficult passengers became irrate. And irrational. One woman called her husband, who called the State Troopers, who sent an officer over to our plane to talk to us. The officer told everybody to sit down, and in true New York fashion a bunch of the idiots, who were teetering on the brink of drunkeness, stood up and yelled, "NO! We're not sitting down until you let us off this plane!" Now really, how much sense does that sentence make. The officer told us that there were 5 major airports in the area closed due to the storm so we just had to sit and be patient. I don't know about you, but when somebody who carries a gun for a living tells me to do something, I'm going to do what he tells me to do.

Lola and I made up names for some of the passengers around us - Doorknob had a giant doorknob on her finger, pretending to be a ring...she was a huge complainer and got everybody around her worked up; Buttcrack - needs no further explanation; Mark - looked like a guy we know named Mark; The Lushes - let their 18 month old drink their empty beer cans...thank God Lola and I are normal.

Oh, and there was a rumor going around that 3 passengers from 1st class were let off the plane because somebody came to pick them up - Phil Donahue. Who knows if it was him or not. So that got Doorknob all worked up and she called her daughter to come pick her up. We were relieved when she left the plane. This is what a military airport looks like. We finally had some supper at 11:00pm. Lola had white cheddar popcorn. I had a banana and skittles.
Our seat mate was sensible and bought a sandwich (the store/restaurant at the airport stayed open just for us - not the 3 of us, the whole plane of passengers).
Before we got off the plane, the pilot told us that there were rooms available at Quality Suites and Homewood Suites and all we needed to do was catch the shuttle. But we still didn't know what was happening the next morning so those of us who didn't live nearby and couldn't rent a car just stood around waiting to hear what was going to happen. Somebody said that the plane we just disembarked was going to take us to Newark at 8:30 the next morning...somebody else said 10:30...we decided to crash at a room and be at the airport by 7:30 the next morning to be on the safe side.
Our room was awesome and quiet.
This was what was left of our group the next morning. 31 passengers our of 112 (the university softball team took a bus to their final destination).
Because it was only going to be a 17 minute flight from Stewart to Newark, we were told to help ourselves to drinks and snacks.
And because we didn't want to sit in Newark airport for how many days without sustenance, I think between the two of us, Lola and I came away with 2 cans of coke, 2 cans of sprite, a 1.5 litre bottle of water and about 15 mini-packets of peanuts.

Boarding our flight to Newark...we were told that there needed to be 15 people in the front half of the plane and 15 people in the back half to distribute the weight...
Military planes:
Coming in to Newark (it was a bumpity flight):
Once at Newark, we were told that we needed to go to the Continental Service desk to find out how to get home. When it was our turn, we were told that our flight on Saturday from Newark to the Great White North had been cancelled, so I had been put on the 11:15am flight, and Lola on the 3:00pm flight (this was now Sunday)....we didn't leave Stewart until almost 11:30, so I missed my flight...not that I knew anything about it, but I still missed it. Plus Lola's flight was booked and I was told I would have to fly stand-by. Lola told the rep she was not going without me, and we told her that we had come in on Flight 477. Apparently the reps had all heard about Flight 477. We were given a knowing nod. Somehow, she was able to work her magic and found me a seat on that flight. We were really quite fortunate to have been able to get home on Sunday. Some people were told they wouldn't be getting home until Monday or even Tuesday.
And I must say that that was the smoothest flight I've ever been on. It was a joy, really. Except that our luggage did not come with us. We had to fill out a form at the continental desk in TO and shuffle through suitcases sitting around...so our purchases have not made it home yet. Hopefully they will soon.
While all this was happening at home, Mr. Happy was being a single-parent to Zoomer and Thumbelina. Thumbelina was not excited to see me; I think she was upset with me for leaving her for 4 days and 3 nights...but last night she would not go to sleep unless I was laying on the couch where she could see me...11:40 is when she finally dozed off...

And my dear dear friends who live in the city, who had planned on picking Lola and I up from the airport on Saturday and bringing up home and spending the weekend in the country, were forced to abandon their plans and sit by the phone all weekend and make numerous calls keeping everybody at home apprised of new situations.

And and Zoomer was supposed to fly out Sunday night from Detriot, but due to the storm of the century the day before, Mr. Happy did not even get close to the border before Zoomer's flight was supposed to leave. They were forced to turn around and come home. Mr. Happy said that was the quietest ride he's ever had with Zoomer, poor kid. We were able to get him a flight with a different airline close to home yesterday, so that we wouldn't have to run the risk of getting stuck at the border again, and now Zoomer is safely in the compound with the in-laws. He's even e-mailed me already this morning.

Thus begins spring break 2008. With still 2 feet of snow still on the ground.