We got home from the airport at 3:30AM and it was great to be here.  We normally have some crazy things happen on travel day and this was no exception.  We left St. Maarten with the airplane about 50% empty, which was great.  We could spread out between our three seats and not be attached at the hip (literally) to a stranger.  The flight attendants told us that we were leaving early and getting in early to Charlotte, NC, which is a great relief because you have to go through customs, pick up your luggage, have it re-checked, then go through security and get to your new gate within a little over an hour.  As we started our descent into Charlotte, the pilot said we were getting in early and put the landing gear down.   Suddenly the airplane picked up speed and the landing gear was re-stowed.  We circled the airport a couple of times and the pilot got back on the microphone, and said an airplane ahead of us made it so we couldn’t land.  (I thought they would have had that all planned out the first time when our landing gear came down.)  So instead of getting in early, we were now getting in late.   I travel with a wheelchair because I can’t walk fast enough to get from point A to point B to make our connections, so we had to wait for the chair to come up from under the airplane where they store it during flight.  You probably are wondering why I don’t use one of those transport carts that are basically a golf cart.    My artificial knee doesn’t bend enough to fit comfortably inside and it’s just easier to use my own wheelchair.  The problem comes when you have a tight connection and the chair doesn’t come up very fast, which of course was the case this time.  American Airlines gives you an assistant to push the chair and take us through the airport more efficiently.  We went through customs and by everyone from our flight had already been there and left.  We got our luggage which came up pretty quickly and finished going through customs.  The time delay at this point made going back through security a time crunch.  TSA does a whole body pat down on me and for some reason on the flights I had this time, they did a really thorough job.  I mean running their fingers through my very short hair, kind of thorough.  Normally I think it’s kind of funny, but when we are short on time, I start to panic.  That’s when we found out our next flight was delayed about thirty minutes, which was a tremendous relief.  We had time to get hot chocolate, as Charlotte was around 30 degrees and the airport not much warmer.  We boarded the plane and sat.  We were going to taxi to our runway but then the pilot said that our runway was closed.  I’m not sure why they closed a runway at 11PM, but apparently they did.  So we taxied to another runway and sat some more.  Almost two hours later, we were in the air.  We should have gotten to Pittsburgh at 11:40 and were there at almost 2AM.  We have almost a two hour drive after that and it was 5 degrees and our car was a solid ice ball so it had to defrost.  I went into the hotel where it was parked and made hot tea for Rich and I while he chopped ice.  If we had known we were getting in that late, we would have had our dog sitter stay the night and we could stay another night in Pittsburgh, but you never know when these things will happen, and you can’t call someone at 11PM and ask them to change their plans.

A long and very boring story to say our flights were delayed.  The funny thing is that we believe we might be travel cursed.  It’s usually around weather or flight delays.  We’ve been caught in two hurricanes in the same year.  In 1999, we were in Orlando for Rich’s work and that hurricane changed path at the last moment so we were spared but it was the first time Disney had ever closed due to a hurricane.  It was my fortieth birthday that year, so we decided to go to St. Maarten for my birthday, which is technically out of hurricane since it’s November 22nd.    St. Maarten was hit with a level 4 hurricane while we were there.  An unbelievable experience, but one I don’t want to repeat.

We almost never go anywhere without our flights being delayed or cancelled.  For our 25th anniversary, we decided we should cruise the Mediterranean as we’ve always wanted to see the pyramids.  It was a two week cruise over Christmas and we knew we have these problems with flight delays, so we left Friday AM, knowing our cruise left Sunday at 6PM.  I chose the most direct flights I could, going from Pittsburgh to Newark, NJ, to Barcelona, Spain.  Apparently there was a snowstorm in Newark and our plane wasn’t large enough to handle it so they cancelled our flight.  Rich went to the ticketing agent to change our flights and she said (and I’m not lying), we can get you there on Tuesday, at which time I immediately burst into tears.  After a lot of typing, she came up with sending us from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, where they had a larger plane, to Newark, to Madrid, Spain, to Barcelona.  We got to Newark with no problem and sat at the gate for six hours directly beside our original plane (where our luggage was.)  When we finally got to Barcelona, our luggage wasn’t there.  So we filed our missing luggage paperwork and went to the hotel.  This is now Saturday around noon.  Instead of sightseeing, we spent the time buying additional clothes, because we had a set or two in our carry-on, but we might not see our luggage for two weeks with our luck.  We had decided this would be the trip of a lifetime, so we booked a suite where we had our own butler, it was awesome.  When we got onboard, he wanted to unpack our luggage and we told him it was missing and he couldn’t understand why we weren’t more upset.   They sent the concierge for the ship to offer to let us go through the “lost and found room” for clothes and we told them we were fine.  They gave us tee shirts and toiletries and left not understanding why we weren’t mad or upset.  The cruise left port and still no luggage so we went to dinner.  When we got back from dinner, our luggage was there.  We were amazed and thrilled since we were already committed to never seeing it until we got home.  When you have this travel curse, you have to roll with the flow.   For some reason, the only stamps in our passport were Spain and Egypt.  When we were on our way home, after seeing the stamps, customs pulled Rich out of line and said his name was on a “list” and took him away.  I had no idea where he was or what was going on, but about twenty minutes later, he came back and said they asked him why he was in Egypt and had he ever been convicted of a crime (an odd combination of questions we thought), and when he said we were on a cruise and no, he’d never been convicted of a crime, they let him go.   We’re cursed.

We’ve been delayed for (and I’m not making these up) the concourse we are supposed to fly into having a fire, weather they can’t fly in or around, airplane parts literally falling off (a flight attendant showed us the part, as she had it in her apron), missing crew, missing airplane (we were on a charter and the plane wasn’t available for two days) going to Punta Cana.  We thought there was going to be a riot in the airport when they announced that delay.  We spent two lovely days in Cleveland instead of Punta Cana.  That was in the early days of people flying there and they had very low standards including the elevator in the hotel.  It stopped between floors and Rich had to lift me three feet to get me out.  They sprayed pesticides every night and so many people on the charter got sick from it.  There were four people including us, that spoke English in the hotel.  On the bus ride to the hotels, we were told never to leave our hotel compounds as it was not safe and we had guards at the gates to ensure no one came inside.  Needless to say, we haven’t been back, although we’ve heard great things about it since.

I keep a travel journal for many reasons, but one is to remember all the crazy things we’ve encountered along the way.  I made a video log of this trip and you’ll hear some funny things that have happened on St. Maarten trips, including the hurricane.

I’ve heard people at airports say they have never been delayed on a flight and I ask if they are on our flight. If so, their luck is about to change.

It’s good to be home.

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