Long Trip HomeWe got back home from vacation Sunday morning about 1:30 a.m. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement. However, I was grateful to have made it back safely and have all of our kids and luggage in tow. I had to chase the rental car folks down to return our vehicle. Otherwise, we made it into the airport OK and got checked in without incident. We had a snack while we waiting for our plane. A longtime friend was also in the airport catching a flight to Paris and we visited with her too. It was then we got the word. We could not believe it at first. It seems St. Maarten didn’t have enough fuel to gas up all the airplanes it had in its airport. We weren’t sure whether it was a fuel shortage or some kind of labor action by airport workers. I shook my head. I was less than a week removed from the drama surrounding our trip from Dominica to St. Maarten via Antigua and St. Kitts, and I was hoping there would not be a repeat on this day. “It’s bad enough I’m spending the 4th of July in airports,” I thought to myself. “I don’t want to spend the 5th of July here either.” Sure enough, they made the announcement that our departure was delayed an hour and a half. I didn’t panic since we had a long layover scheduled in Miami prior to our flight home to Nashville. We sat around and waited for the next shoe to drop. Then came the announcement that would be leaving soon and would make an unscheduled stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to get the fuel we needed to make our trip to Miami. I tried to find something funny in this episode. I could blame Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez since he seemingly controls most of the oil in the Caribbean these days. It’s only a 30-minute flight to Puerto Rico from St. Maarten. When I first began making the trek in 1991, there was a direct flight from Nashville to San Juan. You would then fly onto the island of your choice. I liked San Juan’s airport much better than Miami’s. We weren’t on the ground in San Juan for long. The stewardess kept giving us a blow-by-blow account of where we were in the refueling process. Once we finally started to move, they gave us the new arrival time in Miami. It gave us a couple of hours to land, get our bags, clear immigration and customs and catch our flight to Nashville. I was seated next to a Chilean businessman. We had a nice conversation, and he was looking forward to going to Miami as the second leg of his vacation with his wife and another couple. We got all of our bags except we twice went back after I was told we had “all of our bags.” I was kind of irked, but we muddled through. It was well past 8 o’clock since we found our connecting gate. The only thing open close by was a Pizza Hut. I wasn’t too excited, but the kids were ecstatic. Just as we had finished up our meal, we got called to get on the plane. I thought it was pretty good timing myself. I could see fireworks exploding in towns on the ground. I love the 4th of July holiday and it made me wish we had come back the day before even though my wife would never approve of a plan that would deprive her of even a day in the Islands. The plane ride got a little bumpy as we started to approach Nashville. However, we landed on time with no problems. Thankfully, we got all of our bags and were ready to embark on the final leg of our trip. This entailed jamming everybody into our minivan and making the hour-long trek to our home in Clarksville. I work near the airport in Nashville so my Pop was going to drop the minivan by my office. I took the 5-minute cab ride over there, and didn’t see it. It was then I started to get concerned. Did he forget? Did he leave it someplace else? The cab driver and I circled again. It was time to act so I called Pop on his cell even though it was well after midnight. “Hey Pop, what did you do with my van?” I asked. For some reason, he had parked it in a row in back of the office complex where I work. Only after he told me exactly where it was did I find it. I apologized for calling him so late, but Pop understood. I went back to the airport and we somehow managed to load everybody onboard. I was pretty tired at that point, but was also excited about getting home. I tuned around the radio and noticed that a couple of sports talk stations were talking about Steve McNair’s career. This struck me as odd since he had been away from the game for such a short period of time I figured he could not be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration. I found some music instead. It helped me stay alert. We brought the luggage in the house and collapsed into bed. I should have offered a quick prayer of thanks for the safe travel, but I was gone before my head hit the pillow. |