Touch Down

Well, we've made it home safely from our cruising vacation, and it's hard to overstate how glad we are to be back in Central Indiana. We had a very nice vacation, but yesterday proved to be one of the most torturous days of travel we've ever encountered. (Fair warning, this will be long. I have a lot to get off my chest.)

We returned to Miami around 6am, and our plan was to stay on the ship as long as possible. We had originally booked a flight on AirTran that would put us home sometime in the middle of the afternoon. About a week before we left, we received an email stating that the AirTran schedule had been changed, and our new flight would be departing Miami at 10am. I checked with the cruise company, and they informed me that we would not be able to disembark and make it to the airport in time for this flight. So I called AirTran, and they informed me that that was our only option. After a half hour on the phone, they got us onto a flight leaving Miami at 5:30pm with a three hour stop in Atlanta, arriving in Indy at 12:30am. We weren't happy about this, but we took it. So we stayed on the boat until 10am and then headed for the Miami International Airport. Our plan was to check our bags in and then perhaps head out to a movie or something close by. We also intended to try and fly standby, hoping to get an earlier flight home.

When we arrived at the airport at 11am, I pulled out my cell phone which had two new messages. I got about three sentences into the first message and started having a heart episode. It was the adoption agency telling us that our birth mom was headed to the hospital and would deliver tonight...but the message was dated Saturday afternoon and this was Sunday! Erin and I both immediately went a little nuts, but then I got the second message which was saying that the hospital sent her home. Shew. We hadn't missed anything yet. It was a pain digging through the luggage looking for a new pair of shorts.

We made our way to the AirTran counter, and everyone in line was complaining about the last minute change of schedule. In reality, we should have taken the 10am flight, which we could have made with some rushing, but hindsight is 20/20. So we kindly asked the ticket agent what our options were. He politely responded "none." We asked to check our bags in, and he politely responded "come back in three hours." So not only did we have 7+ hours to kill, but we had two huge suitcases to lug around, so we sat. We were frustrated, tired, and had a nagging case of what I'll call "sea legs" where the floor still feels like it's moving underneath you.

After we parked in the waiting area (which proved challenging in itself, because every seat we found was next to what Erin considered a "suspicious" looking package or discarded piece of clothing), I began watching other patrons having their luggage shrink wrapped. I had never seen this at any other airport, but all over MIA (this is the 3 letter acronym for Miami International Airport, but it apparently has a subtle dual meaning) there are guys charing $14 per bag to shrink wrap your luggage. I inquired as to what happens if the government needs to inspect your luggage, and the guy informed me that they will rewrap it in the baggage handling area if neccessary. I should hope so for $14. I inquired as to why shrink wrapping might be necessary, and he indicated that your bags spend a lot of time "unattended" at MIA. I inquired with a couple of individuals who were spending a fortune to wrap everything they were carrying. I asked if stuff frequently turns up missing at MIA and they both replied with an emphatic "Si." Not willing to spend $50 having my luggage wrapped, Erin and I reorganized our bags, moving all valuables to our carry-on bag. This was a pain, but we decided that it was the right move.

Sitting across from us in the waiting area was a hapless looking gentleman with a woman who looked and sounded very much like the bus driver from South Park. Approximately every five minutes, she would look at the man and say, "Is Corey still dead?" to which the man would reply, "Yes." At this point, she would begin sobbing uncontrollably and repeating "I could have saved him. It's all my fault." She was also obviously angry with the man, who apparently kept providing the wrong answer to her inquiry. Now much debate existed between Erin and I regarding said deceased. The woman did not appear to be all together stable, and we debated as to whether Corey was, in fact, a pet iquana or dog. Additionally, I couldn't gather whether Corey had died yesterday or 10 years ago, based on the mental state of the woman, but she was obviously still in the grieving stage. After several hours in an airport terminal, these are not the types you want to board a plane with. The strange thing was that she would stop sobbing for just long enough to start yelling at the guy about completely unrelated things. I noted to Erin that I was fairly sure I'd seen the couple on "Cops," and I fully expected them to respond "moonshine" when asked what beverage they would like on the plane.

After sitting for what seemed an eternity, we boarded the plane around 5:30pm. (Can you guess who had the seat across the aisle from me?) We were headed for Atlanta, and everything seemed fine, until we started making these funny turns. Having spent countless hours in the back seat of a small plane with my dad, I explained to Erin that we appeared to be in a holding pattern over central Georgia. About that time, the pilot came on and informed us that we were, indeed, in a holding pattern over Dublin, GA. He explained that there was weather over Atlanta, and we would have to hold until it cleared enough to land. So we did circles. And more circles. And more circles. Two hours later, and the combination of sea legs and holding patterns had our stomachs in knots. At this point, the pilot came over the PA and said, "Ladies and gentleman, we've run out of fuel and cannot continue holding. Therefore we're diverting to Savannah." There was a general groan of disgust, after which the pilot tried to salvage the marketability of his employer by informing us that there were two Delta flights and a Continental flight also being forced into Savannah. So land at Savannah we did. The only way this stupid flight to Atlanta could have been made less enjoyable is if it had actually crashed.

Now every part of me was hoping that they would let us off the plane, and I could run for the nearest rental car and drive home from Savannah. Sure, it would be a 12 hour trip, but no part of me wanted to do more circles over Georgia. And even more importantly, no part of me wanted to fly through thunderstorms with an already upset stomach. But alas, the airline kept us on the plane. After about 20 minutes, the pilot comes over the PA and says, "We're getting ready to depart. We're going to try and push through this storm and get into Atlanta in the next 50 minutes." Ok, so we spent hours avoiding the storm that we're now going to "push through?" This didn't fill me with confidence. And to make matters worse, by this time I had revisited the death of Corey approximately 50 times.

So we took off, and despite absolutely horrid visibility, rain, and bumps, we made it to Atlanta relatively quickly. When we landed, we had to sit at the end of the runway for about 30 minutes waiting for a gate. Since the rain and wind were still blowing everything around, I was actually hoping that we'd end up in a hotel for the night. My stomach didn't want to fly any more. But they held the Indy flight for us, and we took off a few minutes later. (And guess which lovely woman was on THAT flight as well?) The flight to Indy was fairly bumpy, given that we were still fighting the same line of thunderstorms the whole way home. In the end we arrived home at 2:30am. And as far as our luggage goes, it did get opened up, and a large cosmetic kit which Erin just got for Christmas was gone. It speaks well of Miami that apparently your luggage is guaranteed to be rifled through, and anything desired by the local baggage handlers removed.

Needless to say, we're beat. We're awaiting news on the baby, and in the mean time, we're going to try and relax and clear our heads. We'll post pictures and more info about the trip in the coming days. We've already begun discussing what location in the surrounding four states we'll be taking our next vacation in. Neither of us wants to fly again any time soon.