Saturday, February 20, 2010

Not much in LaGuardia

Wednesday after watching the weather on several local NYC channels, checking for emails from the airline and having the front desk check if the airport had been closed, we decided to go ahead and grab a taxi to the airport. There had been no indication that anything had been canceled so why it changed during the 20-30 minutes it took us to get to the airport we shall never know. When we pulled into the drop off area the lack of people concerned us all. Mrs. Terri ran inside to check on our flight while the taxi driver quickly threw our luggage out and left us. She came back with very bad news! ALL flights that whole day had been canceled. The good news (if you want to call it that) was they had already rescheduled our flight... the three of them would leave SUNDAY and Ruthe and I would leave on MONDAY! Are you serious? This is what we all were asking the poor lady dealing with us. As much as I would like to stay another five days and hunt down the "purse man" again staying for five more days is not possible. Of course she could do nothing and advised us to call the 800 number for more help.
My next thought... "Oh stink! I have to call Clint and tell him my flight has been canceled but no worries they rescheduled me for MONDAY!" Yeah that was not going to go well! This was his response, "Monday, you can't stay five more days, Monday, wow, MONDAY?!?!?! (a long silence) I need to think through this and I'll call you back in just a minute." As promised he called back not long after and said he was dropping the boys off at the Davis' then driving back to NYC in another blizzard to pick us up. At this point we had figured out that Mom, Mrs Terri and Brittany could change their return flight to leave from Richmond so we scoped out some food and tables and were hunkering down for about 10 hours.
Yep, we hung out in the LaGuardia airport for about 10 hours while we waited for our hero to arrive. We watched the snow turn into a complete white out then let up then get heavy again all the while feeling bad for Clint and praying for his safety. We had come up with a great plan to pass the time. The first thing was to get lunch then we would go to Borders and read all the books. Well, that plan was quickly squashed. While getting our lunch, we noticed the stores closing. Then, of course, we went into a panic wondering if all the food places were going to close also. We were going to be there a long time and if we had no food it was not going to be pretty. We went to one of the little food places and stocked up on some snack foods. One by one, we watched the food places close up. By dinner time, there was only one place left open and it just happened to be the same place we had eaten lunch. Oh well! When you are hungry, you will eat what you got, right?
I talked to Clint periodically through out the day and it was not good. The storm was way worse than he thought. States he was driving through were shutting down the roads even for the snow plows. Thankfully these decisions were made as he was driving out of them or after he had already gotten past them. It took him about 9 hours for what should of been about 5-6 hour trip then the poor thing had to turn around and drive back. The good thing was, by the time he picked us up and we were headed back, the blizzard had slowed down tremendously. He drove long enough to get us back out of the city then pulled over for me to drive. I didn't mind considering he drove through all that mess to rescue us. Mom even got to experience what it is like to drive in the snow. Now that is something very few Floridians have done! We pulled into our drive way about 4:30 am and were so glad to be home!
Because of the blizzard, we had an extra day to spend with Mom, Mrs Terri and Brittany since their flight was not until Friday. We rested up that morning then took them to see Coffee with a Cause. Both families have been supporters and heard up dates so they were quite excited to visit CWAC. Later on, the kids got Brittany out in the yard to build a snowman and I have to say she did pretty well for a Floridian!
It was a bit crazy trying to get to NYC and then home again but it was worth it. Ruthe and I made some great memories that we will never forget!

1 comment:

beckers said...

snow and airports...gotta love em!! lol glad yall got home safe!