Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Journey Begins with the First Step

Or with the first flight cancellation.

Eight friends have planned a trip to the Caribbean for a year. We live in Northern VA, Nashville, Salt Lake City and at Smith Mountain lake. We booked a cruise leaving San Juan on Saturday and gave ourselves three days to get there.

Day Zero (the day before Day One): An ice storm is forecast for most of the traveling area, except Salt Lake City. My husband Terry and I decided to head to Roanoke early and stay there overnight. "Just in case." No sooner than we had we arrived than Delta called with the anticipated news: Our flights the next morning were canceled and we had been rebooked for the next day. Figures.

Day One: We are supposed to be flying through Atlanta today, Wednesday, Jan 28. Instead we are "vacationing" in Roanoke. We decided to stay, go to the Taubman, go to a movie and hassle Delta about our return flights. Our Northern VA friends got out early this morning from Dulles and are in Miami. Brats! Others begin their travel tomorrow. We'll see what Day Two holds.

We always knew the weakest link in this whole trip was air travel. Alas, we were once again proven right. We have the weather gods on one shoulder and the Delta devil on the other. We still don't know who will win. Stay tuned.

As Bilbo Baggins said (paraphrased, of course): the road goes ever on and on, out from the door where it began. We thought we'd get farther than 25 miles from home the first day, but. . . .