Traveling men

[tedwords]

"We made it!"

When it comes to traveling, with us, half of the struggle is getting there.

Especially with cruises. The past two years we’ve scheduled cruises in February, and both times, we experienced major snowstorms that have caused our flights to be cancelled. Last year we were lucky and the delay only involved us leaving from Boston instead of Providence. We weren't so lucky this time around.

This year, a big snow storm hit New England two days before we left, on Thursday. And that Thursday, I woke up to find our flight for Saturday had already been cancelled, and the rescheduled flight would get us to Fort Lauderdale an hour after our boat took off.

Corb’s mother, who was also going on a cruise that was setting off in Fort Lauderdale that same day, rather smugly (I thought) chastised us for not going direct from Boston to Fort Lauderdale through Jet Blue. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to take Jet Blue,” she said. Gee, thanks.

Frantic scrambling. We figured the easiest thing would be to book a flight that day from an airport as far away from the storm as possible, and ended up choosing a flight taking off in D.C. That meant a seven-hour train ride on Friday.

Which didn’t start out well. As we parked the car in the train station garage. I grabbed the ticket and said to Corb, “I’m putting this right behind my passport card,” at which point he said, “Oh shit” and remembered he left his passport on our bed.

Two hours later, we were settled in our train. Arrived in DC at 11 at night. Our flight was scheduled to leave at six, meaning our wake-up call was 3:30 in the morning. You know, because of that whole “make sure you arrive at the airport ninety minutes early" thing.

Only problem: after all that careful planning, after all our theories about taking a flight far away from the snow storm, this flight was rescheduled due to mechanical failure (something about the breaks, I don’t know, do I look mechanically inclined?) This time, the reschedule would get us into Fort Lauderdale a half an hour before our boat took off. If we were lucky.

More frantic scrambling. I jumped on the phone, Corb stood in line to get the first available attendant. After a completely miserable hour and through the help of a lovely service agent who personally went to grab our bags before they were moved to the wrong plane, we finally were able to reschedule to Ft Lauderdale with three hours to spare.

“I still can’t believe we managed to board at the exact time we were scheduled to,” I said to Corb that night, as we settled in to bed, slightly drunk from all the liquid refreshment we had consumed.

“I know, I know,” Corb sighed. He was exhausted.

“But you know what? It’s totally worth it. Even with all the freak-outs, even though I felt like giving up last night when we arrived at DC so late. The minute I arrived all of that was swept away. I love our adventures together, Corb.”

“Me too,” Corb mumbled, eyes closed. He was already half asleep. Those getting there adventures really can really take a toll.