[Author’s note: This one turned out to be a little longer than I expected. Kind of like my day of travel
If you have ever had “one of those days”, I think you’ll enjoy this first-person tale…]
Isn’t Traveling Fun?
I’m used to hearing many versions of this question; “Do you like to travel so much?”
Sometimes it’s phrased in a positive way like “I’ll bet you love all the perks of traveling” and other times it comes from a pain point frame of mind like, “Doesn’t all that travel drive you crazy?”
Of course, I love the part of my career/life that allows me to travel so much. Whether it’s for speaking opportunities, industry conferences, business trips, personal travel to visit family, sporting events or golf trips, or the simple getaway to our second home in Florida.
I often share on social media those fun moments where I experience what I call #TravelKarma, such as when I have an open seat next to me on the plane or I get upgraded to first class or a nicer hotel room. I’ve blogged about some of the amazing people I’ve encountered on my travels that provide me with what I like to call a #Blogworthy experience.
Rest assured, those good moments help to balance out the days when #TravelKarma doesn’t exactly go your way. Like this past weekend…
Saturday
4:52 am – Eyes open and see the clock at 4:52…knowing the clock is going off at 4:55 am.
Roll over and try to get maximum sleep out of the next 3 minutes.
4:53 am – Okay, can’t do it. I decide to just get up before the alarm actually goes off and wakes up the wife and dog.
4:53:05 am Sneak out of bed and head downstairs to do exercises before the early morning flight (sit-ups and push-ups)
5:12 am – sneak back up to shower. I decided to make Callie wait to go down and eat until I’m dressed. My flight to Starkville is at 7:00 (The Delta boarding process is scheduled to begin at 6:20) so we don’t need to leave home until 5:45.
5:13 am – Turn on shower. Hear the first clap of thunder as a major thunderstorm hits Central Ohio. [foreshadowing of bad things to come]
5:16 am – Shower complete. A thunderstorm rages outside. Callie is pacing patiently for her breakfast right outside the bathroom.
5:16:05 am – Realize I should have taken Callie out before it started pouring rain.
5:18 am – Dressed and ready to roll. I head downstairs to feed Callie. I try to take her out as the front wall of the storm hits our neighborhood. Callie is a smart dog and simply refuses to go out. Callie runs to her food dish as if to say, “Forget potty time. Feed me now.”
5:19 am – Callie eats.
All is well.
5:32 am – I mentioned to my wife, “Are you still planning to take me to the airport?”
5:32:07 am – “You said we weren’t leaving until 5:45!” a sleepy wife whispers.
5:32:09 am – I decide to not start a fight and head downstairs.
[Thunderstorm rages on. Sean checks his weather App. Massive amounts of green, orange, and red blobs fill the screen]
[Sean, leaving nothing to chance, puts the travel bag in the car and readies for an on-time departure.]
5:45 am – On-time departure to John Glenn International. Under normal circumstances, we should be there in 18 minutes at this hour with no traffic…until…
5:52 am – Blinking signage notifying drivers that “315 is closed. Follow detour.”
We need to exit the freeway and weave through some neighborhood streets and part of downtown Columbus for 11-12 minutes to access a different expressway to the airport.
6:04 am – Dropped off at the airport. “Have a good day of traveling, honey,” says the wife, not realizing the downward spiral the day is about to take.
6:07 am – Enter TSA PreCheck line. It’s much shorter than regular TSA but still not moving quickly.
6:19 am – Clear TSA. One minute until the scheduled boarding time.
6:20 am – Scheduled boarding time…but because we are flying Delta, no one at the gate shows any immediate urgency to begin boarding. Regardless, passengers start to queue up near Gate 55 and start filling up the entire area so no other travelers can get by.
6:43 am (17 min to scheduled take off) – The gate agent finally announces, “Main Cabin 3, you’re welcome to board.” I am the second to last person to board the plane. [Note to self – Need to start working on your priority levels with Delta Airlines].
As I pass the First Class attendant, I overhear hear saying something to “Headphones Guy” in 2C about a “lightning delay.” I sit in vacant aisle seat 14D instead of going all the way back to my assigned seat 27D. I figure any time I can save on what was already going to be a quick connection might come in handy.
6:56 am – Captain finally comes on the intercom to tell us that due to the thunderstorms, the ground crew at the airport was unable to be on the tarmac, so they haven’t fueled up the plane and we will now be “5th in line” once the lightning has cleared the area.
7:15 am – “The ground crew has all clear. We should start seeing some activity on the right side of the plane soon,” says the Captain.
7:22 am – Fuel crew arrives.
7:29 am – Main cabin door shuts and Captain says we should be leaving the gate shortly. He assures us that “It’s just a 1 Hr, 6 min flight to Atlanta and we should be able to make up some time in the air.”
8:41 am – Landed at ATL. We taxi expediently for Gate D6. This is good news because my next flight is leaving in 26 minutes from Gate D30. Not having to change terminals in the Atlanta airport is certainly a bonus. I say to myself, “I can make it.”
8:50 am – “Hey everyone, this is your Captain. We worked hard to get you here as quickly as we could…but there is currently another plane at our gate. We are gonna have to wait here on the tarmac about 15-20 more minutes until they pull away from the gate.”
* Serious question – what’s the point of “making up time in the air” if you’re going to throw it all away (and then some) once you land on the ground?
9:08 am – We reach the gate.
9:14 am – I make it off the plane and rush to Gate 30 but alas, the plane is gone. All those trips where I’ve been sitting on a flight ready to take off and the Captain announces that we need to wait for a few connecting passengers to make it to the gate and this plane couldn’t pay it back???
Delta had automatically rebooked me on the only other flight today to Columbus/Starkville – the 4:45 pm flight. “Yippee. That’s only 7 hours from now,” I think to myself.
I proceed to the Delta Help Desk to see what options I have.
9:22 am – After updating my son that he won’t need to leave to pick me up at the airport in an hour, Ryan suggests I just change my destination to Nashville. He can finish cleaning out his apartment with his girlfriend Alex and then hit the road and pick me up in Nashville. It’s 4.5 hours from Starkville but on the way home to Columbus. We agree this sounds like the most logical plan.
9:25 am – Delta Help Desk says, “We can’t rebook you to Nashville. Our rebooking rules state that it has to be an airport within 100 miles of your original destination. That means your choices are Mobile, Memphis, or Birmingham. Unless you want to pay for Nashville.”
Having no luck with Hyelen in person, she suggests I try the Delta Customer Hotline phones located behind me on the wall.
10:02 am- After 25+ minutes on hold with Delta, Fabi thankfully rebooks me on the flight to Nashville leaving ATL at 1:33EST. I notify Ryan and head to terminal T to get some food (and a beer).
11:25 am – Ryan calls. “Dad, I hate to tell you this but the front tire just fell off my car. I’m not going to be able to leave today.”
Yep, the ball joint connecting the tire to the front axle completely snapped off. Luckily he was just pulling into a parking space in front of his hotel and not driving down some desolate two-lane road somewhere between Tupelo, Mississippi and Dickson, Tennessee.
11:32 am – A tow truck is called. Sean cashes out from the bar and heads back to the Delta counter, this time to hopefully get rebooked again, this time back to the originally rebooked 4:45 pm flight to GTR (Columbus/Starkville). Good news. Lyndon easily grabs me a seat on that later flight and credits me for the unused Nashville flight.
11:48 am – Sean heads back to Terminal D and finds another restaurant/bar to kill time in and work on booking a rental car.
I start with Hertz where I have Gold Member status. Turns out Gold Member status doesn’t even earn you Bronze level luck because according to their website, there are no one-way cars available from the tiny, one-gate airport in Columbus, Mississippi…or anywhere in the state for that matter.
I try Budget. Same thing.
“Hmmm,” I say to myself, “Lemme check Birmingham. That’s a bigger airport and city than Columbus/Starkville. They might have something. But this time I’ll call and speak to a human being and maybe start earning back some #TravelKarma.“
12:09 pm – I try Hertz first. Angel finally answers the phone after 9 minutes of horrendous on-hold music and the occasional fake answer only to hear “We are experiencing high call volume. A representative will be with you shortly.”
Sadly, Angel didn’t earn her wings because she tells me what I already learned on the website – there are no one-way cars available from Columbus, or Starkville, or Birmingham.
12:33 pm – Mercedes from Budget (yeah, I think it’s funny too) gives me the bad news that they don’t have any one-way cars from Birmingham either.
I scroll furiously through the apps on my phone to find the rarely used Avis app. In fact, it’s so rarely used that I needed to refresh it to even access it.
12:47 pm- Mike, sitting next to me at the bar, overhears my struggles and asks me why I’m headed to Starkville. Turns out that Mike just left Starkville. He was the manager of The Guest Room, an underground speakeasy located underneath The Restaurant Tyler, one of Starkville’s finer establishments.
We exchange pleasantries and he cheers on my search from the next barstool.
12:54 pm – Avis might not be #1 but they try harder and gosh darn it, they win the day. I am able to book a car from BHM to Columbus, Ohio…except now, I have to make sure that Delta can change my flight – again – this time from GTR to BHM.
12:57 pm – Mike was hanging out until he heard the outcome of my query with Avis. He was excited that I was gonna make it to Starkville before the day ended. He even offered me free drinks at The Guest Room if I made it. He promised he was gonna call in to the staff and give them my name. [I took a selfie with him in case we made it in.]
*Side note – we didn’t….but I’ll save the photo in my phone for my next return visit to Starkville during football season.
1:02 pm – Back in line at the Delta Help Desk. John behind the desk remembers me from earlier. I tell him that now need to get on a flight to Birmingham. He does his magic and I’m suddenly rebooked on the 2:15 flight which is leaving out of the B terminal.
As I walk away, I think of the line in the Billy Joel song “Piano Man;”
“John at the desk is a friend of mine, he gets me rebooked for free…”
1:18 pm – Back on the underground train – this time to Terminal B.
1:55 pm – Finally boarded in Atlanta for my 28-minute flight to Birmingham. It feels like I landed in Atlanta 24 hours ago.
2:15 pm – On-time departure. Way to go Delta.
2:20 pm – Nap time.
1:54 pm – Now I am in the Central Time Zone. Welcome to Birmingham.
2:10 pm – Mary behind the counter at Avis greets me with a big Southern smile and gets me in my rental car quickly. God bless you, Mary.
2:15 pm – I begin the drive to Starkville.
4:32 pm – Arrive at the hotel in Starkville.
6:30 pm – Meet Ryan and Alex for dinner and some well-earned drinks.
[End Scene]
Long day? For sure, but after all was said and done, everyone is okay and we will have a funny story to tell.
Ryan and I made the long drive back to Ohio and pulled into our driveway at home at 8:09 pm on Sunday night, just 38 hours and 24 minutes after I pulled out the day before.
In another week we will get in the car again and drive back to Starkville where he will begin his Senior year at Mississippi State. I’ll then head to Memphis for a speaking gig and be back on the road (or in the air), by choice, for many more fall events. Some for business. Some for pleasure.
I just need to remind myself to keep it all in perspective…and take Callie out before it rains.
Here’s hoping the positive #TravelKarma comes back my way on the next trip.
