My friend Amy and I had a perfectly wretched year. Truly. So when she suggested we celebrate our October birthdays by getting away together, I jumped on it. I am fortunate to have a husband who gave the idea his whole-hearted support. (And if he wasn't whole-heartedly supporting it, he kept that to himself, because he's like that!) He even helped us book our trip. What followed was a wonderful, refreshing, restoring time together. And hopefully a few blog posts. This is the first...
Amy was perfectly content to go wherever on our trip. I suggested warm, because I now live in someplace that gets cold, and this is the beginning of the get cold season. Coincidentally, I had airline miles that needed to be used or they would expire. So my job was to figure out where we could go for 80,000 miles. Tropical. On the timetable we had available. The search quickly narrowed to Ft. Lauderdale airport. Routes from St. Louis would fly through Houston. Perfect. That narrowed down, the search was on for hotel/resort. My only real requirements were: on the beach. with a pool. period. We wound up booking at the "Pink Shell Spa and Resort" in Ft. Myers, just a couple car hours from Ft. Lauderdale, on the Gulf Coast. Car rental also courtesy of airline miles.
I met up with Amy at the airport in Houston, and we boarded our morning flight to Florida, scheduled for 2 pm arrival. We'd be at the hotel by 5 pm. Yay! We hadn't been in our seats long (Amy aisle, me in middle), when the passenger arrived for the seat across the aisle. I'm pretty sure he was flying with 3 friends (maybe 4), unless they had somehow just met and hit it off in the airport. When he walked down the aisle I gave Amy a look. Kind of a smirk, with my eyes saying "look at this guy." Obviously middle-aged, he was wearing tight leather pants. Amy looked at him, then looked at me and smiled, with perhaps a bit of a giggle.
Once the plane was loaded, but before we pushed back, he stood up and said, "excuse me. I have to stretch." He proceeded to do the splits in the aisle. All the way down. Not what I expected when he said he needed to stretch. I was expecting more of a back stretch. If I had been drinking some water, I think I would have spit it out. Amy was cracking up too, but she was facing me. I looked at her and rolled my eyes like "get a load of that," then looked up and he was looking right at me. Oops. It was all I could do to keep from busting out in laughter. At least two more times during our flight he stood up, excused himself, and did the splits in the aisle. All without splitting those tight leather pants. (I think they must have had some spandex in them).
About halfway into the flight the captain got on the intercom and told us we were making great time and should arrive in Ft. Lauderdale about 20 minutes early. Even better! About 20 minutes later he told us there was a bit of a problem and would be a delay, but we should still arrive on time. Probably about 20 minutes and one leather-pants guy stretch later, he said, "You might notice we've been circling. There's been a fire at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on the runway, and they are clearing it. It should be just a little while until we're cleared for landing. And don't worry, there's plenty of fuel on the plane...enough to circle for about 2 hours" A groan went up from all aboard.
More circling and another, "Don't worry, we have plenty of fuel" happened. And then the pilot announced that the airport was now closed to traffic and it would be at least 2 more hours until we could land. Oy. And all the other planes in the air had already diverted to Miami, the closest airport, which was now full. Double Oy. Then he said "We are going to be diverting to Ft. Myers airport." While everyone else was groaning, we let out a little whoop! since Ft. Myers was our final destination. What luck, we would save the 2 hour drive!
Leather pants guy said to one of his Mates, "Good thing we flew today and not tomorrow, or we would miss our boat." They were heading out of Ft. Lauderdale on a cruise. Amy and I are both convinced that they were an aging 80's rock band and would be the entertainment on that cruise. (So convinced in fact, we spent some time that night Googling 80s rock bands to see if we could find a picture of them.) They had to be a has-been 80s rock group, or they wouldn't have been flying in coach.
When the plane landed and the pilot said we could wait on the plane, or wait at the gate in the airport, we quickly grabbed our belongings. We told LPG that this was where we were headed anyway, and he proceeded to jokingly blame us for the runway fire. Sure wish I would have had the guts to ask him who he was, but he gave us quite a laugh for the rest of our trip.
So we landed in our ultimate destination (yay!), saved ourselves the 2 hour wait (at least) at the airport until we could head over to Ft. Lauderdale (yay!) and the 2 hour drive back to Ft. Myers (yay!), but unfortunately, our free-rental car didn't transfer to the new airport. (boo!) Fortunately, we weren't in a rush and Ft. Lauderdale wasn't our final destination. As we headed to our rental car another girl was heading the same way. She was on her way to a wedding. The bachelorette party was at 6. I'm sure she was going to be late. Bummer. We, on the other hand, stopped along the way for a bite to eat, got stuck in a bit of traffic on the way to the hotel, and were still checked in before 5 pm, in time to see our first of 4 beach sunsets! Beautiful!
Leather Pants Guy might still have been doing splits in the airport.
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