Awake.
On the road.
We’re at the airport, trying to find the parking lot. The only thing we can find is $26 a day and we can’t believe that’s right. That must be the hourly lot and we need to find the long-term parking lot. Honestly, though, I am so anxious that we decide that $26 a day is worth it just to make sure we get on that plane. The problem is that the parking lot is full from near-top to bottom. I say “near top” because the uncovered roof was closed to parking due to the snow. So now we set off to find off-airport parking. There were plenty of lots that we passed and most charged under $26 a day.
Nearly every lot we see appears to have signs about it being full. No matter, though, because we have time to take a longer shuttle from a farther-flung parking lot. We stop at a couple lots that don’t have signs about being full only to find out they’re full to.
We manage to get our car stuck in a hotel parking lot trying to turn around. This is just what we need. It takes us a good 10-15 minutes to get out.
We come to the determination that there is literally nowhere that we can park. If we had thought about it sooner, we could have gone all the way out to a Park’n’Ride, but we didn’t know where any were and by the time we got there it would be too late anyway. And so it was that on the day where Clancy consented to the earliest arrival she has ever consented to in her life, we still missed our flight. Devastated, we make our way home
We call the airline and cancel our seats. They say that they can get us out late the next day (Christmas) if we upgrade to first class, but we’re not willing to. I wish I had realized that Clancy’s reluctance was the belief that she could find us something sooner or better priced because I would have disabused her of that notion really quick. I thought we had just given up. Instead, she spent the next three hours trying to arrange something. I am simply exhausted from attempted travel and have ideas that we might just spend a quiet Christmas together. She disabused me of that notion quickly as it became apparent that if we were stuck here over Christmas, she would spend most of it wishing that we were in Delosa. So when she found an extremely expensive flight out the next day, I consented and we decided to spend Christmas day in transport.
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5 Responses to Travhell 2008: Wednesday, 12/24
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Good God dude, you should have just stayed home. As for Clancy, I take it she likes to fly out later in the day rather than earlier? That wasn’t really clear in the post.
Everything’s clearer in retrospect, of course, but it probably would have been cheaper to have parked illegally somewhere, even by the side of the road, and caught your planned flight than to have rebooked on another flight. It’s quite likely that the rebooking charge was higher than what a tow and impound would have cost.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t flown since the early to mid 90’s. I’m somewhat surprised when I realize what a homebody I’ve become, as I always assumed I’d fly to visit relatives at least once or twice a year.
Related point: do women want to visit their relatives more often than men do? It’s that way with my brother’s wives; I’m wondering if it’s true in a broader sense.
Don’t think that it didn’t cross our mind, Peter. If we would have had to eat the plane ticket, it might have been cheaper. But we got credit from the airline. If there was some minor violation we could have committed, I might have wanted to go for it on the basis that tow trucks were undoubtedly very busy. Unfortunately, no minor violations were evident.
Kirk,
There’s actually a saying that a son is your son until he gets married but a daughter is your daughter until you die. That would suggest that it’s quite true in the broader sense. On the other hand, though, living close to parents has historically been a priority for me and is not much of one for her. So generally, my marriage may be an exception. I think in this case I was more inclined to wave the white flag cause I’d been through more.
Clancy doesn’t like getting up early in the morning. That’s the main objection she has to early flights.