2017 Life Logs, Day 323: Craziness
Date: Sunday, November 19, 2017
Weather: AM Rainy, Windy; PM in Fort Myers Beach–Delightful
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
This craziness in my life has just got to stop! The non-crazy part of my day was the trip from home to Fort Myers Beach. It was stormy this morning, but we were off and running on time. Actually, we were a little delayed by me as Sam, Jonah, and Ollie were in the van and ready to go when I arrived. But we were off and running in plenty of time for our 12:55 pm flight out of Boston. We had to change planes in Charlotte, but the Goldpebbles handled that just fine. They were absolutely wonderful travelers for the entire day. Once we arrived in Fort Myers, my brother-in-law Lee picked us up at the airport and delivered us to our hotel on Fort Myers Beach. The boys had a snack in Charlotte and another on the plane, but we all needed dinner when we got here. The allure of the pool on a warm Florida night was just too much, however. The pool won out and they didn’t have dinner until 9 when the pool closed, but they didn’t seem to mind. Sam is sleeping in my room tonight as Heather and Jed’s room is a little cramped with only two double beds. But I have offered to have all of the grandchildren sleep in my room every night if they want. So, I think things will work out just fine. Two of Lee’s daughters, Michelle and Teresa, arrived while I was checking everyone in, and they brought boxes of things for Justin and Jo that I had sent here from Amazon and bags of food necessities to get us through tomorrow morning. We all sat in the outside seating area and had a well-deserved drink while Jed played in the pool with the boys. Michelle and Teresa then took Lee home as he left his van for us to use for the week. They will come visit us on the beach tomorrow and we will continue our visiting. It is so wonderful to be here.
Now for the craziness. Justin and family are not here . . . yet. It is now midnight and in about 20 minutes they should land in Fort Lauderdale which is a two-hour drive from here. Their flight was delayed by five hours, but hopefully they will get here around three in the morning. They got to the San Juan airport early for their flight, but were notified almost immediately that their 5:30 pm flight was delayed until 10:30 pm. The plane that was to fly them from Puerto Rico to Florida was coming into San Juan and had a collision with what was reported to be a pelican. There was so much damage to the front of the plane that it had to be grounded. Another plane was sent from the mainland, but that takes time. I just couldn’t believe this happened to them. But hopefully I’ll get a text in just a few minutes announcing their arrival. Then they have the next hurdle. Their car rental reservation is with Enterprise. Just as they were getting ready for take-off in San Juan, Justin saw that Enterprise closes at 1 am. He was on the plane and they were already headed down the runway when I got the message to try and call Enterprise and help him come up with Plan B. Should have been easy, but I spent more than an hour trying to call the Enterprise number. Every time I would get through the automated question and answer routine, and then the call would drop. I thought it was my phone, so I tried Skype phone to phone from my computer. But I have not made a call to a phone via Skype for who knows how long and that part of my account had been deactivated. It is a long and frustrating story that I will spare you, but I finally gave up on Skype and I gave up on Enterprise. I called Budget and found their auto punch this number for that, etc., more than I could endure tonight. So, I called the next open 24-hour rental at the Fort Lauderdale airport which was Alamo. I got the nicest woman and she explained that they are a sister company to Enterprise and Justin can take his reservation there and they will honor it. Whew! I sent a message to Justin via WhatsApp and hopefully he will get it as soon as they land. I sure hope it works out and that we will finally have that group hug in the morning. Do other people have crazy things like this happen in their lives?
