The fun part of travel

It started as a normal Thursday, except that I knew I had taken Friday and the following Monday off.

Backing up a bit, lets start with the fiasco. Or…All of it. Thursday I get off of work about 30 minutes early to go see my Dad (as he promised me B-Day dinner) and tell him of my 4 day weekend. Now, I had initially taken Friday and Monday off due to two factors: the California non-denominational church youth get-together, and the Formula One race in Monaco. I was torn between which one I wanted to go to more until I decided to go to Monaco and witness F1 in all its glory first hand. That was, until I found that tickets (even standing room only) STARTED at about 300 bucks. Not to mention that a night in Monaco costs nearly a full 1000 dollars.

After mentally backing out of the WEekend in California, I decided to go someplace else. Japan! I planned out what little I could do in Japan in such a short stint (made even shorter by the super long flight there and back) and brought the plan to my father. After looking at flights, he prosed going to Curacao, he had a business partner there that would pull some strings and possibly get me a bungalow there for free. The only way to Curacao was from Miami airport, and no flights looked open to Miami at all. He took a look at sending me to Orlando, then flying to Miami, then off to the Caribbean from there. Going to Orlando was easy, but getting to Miami via plane was still horrendous. So, I was to fly to Orlando and rent a car for a quick 50 bucks and drive down. The catch: The flight to Orlando was leaving 2 hours from now, I had not packed, and I was 1 hour from my house in traffic.

I raced home, an amazing feat of 45 minutes in that dallas traffic, and started throwing everything I needed into my suitcase. I was stinky but had no time for a shower. Let me remind you, the flight LEFT in 1:15 hrs. I double checked everything and stole Karl’s flip flops just for good measure. The plane was now to leave in 55 minutes. I raced to where I was to meet my Dad and got there with about 20 minutes until the flight left. It was Grapevine mills mall, so it almost seemed do-able. We went to the terminal as fast as the jeep could go without flying apart, and made it to the drop point. Still 12 minutes till the plane took off. My father had “checked me in” electronically an hour before (yes!) and I got to the self-check in machine. It told me I was signing in too late. A quick call to the Father and we checked in at the counter. We were good to go. By this time I was sweaty, hungry, tired from work, and wired from the whirlwind of running all about DFW. I was liable to make a mistake or two. I forgot that my temp license was the only way to validate my now “out of date” license, and had left the temp license at home (not intentionally mind you) So the nice man at the counter asked for my passport instead of putting me through the “search every cavity” line. I quickly handed it over and said thanks in a breeze. Then I forgot my belt was on. BEEP. Crap. Then I forgot my phone may have some metal in it. BEEP--CRAP! Two beeps means you get to go to the “yeah that cavity” line and wait as the precious minutes ticked by. All this effort, all this scrambling, and the last flight to Orlando was leaving in 5 minutes, and I was 3 minutes into a 5 minute pat-down. With seconds left to spare I arrived at the gate, them ready to close the door. Seeing the yellow mark on my boarding pass, the gate agent saw I was “a security risk” and took my first class ticket she had in hand and printed out a ticket next to the engine. Well, whatever. I MADE IT.

The flight was two hours long, and I thought about the two hours leading up to getting in the plane. The prior felt like it went by in 15 minutes, the current left me feeling like I was in a showing of all three Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back.

On the plane I pulled out the ole’ trusty laptop to see that in my rush out of the house I had hit the shut off button, then slapped it shut. Well vista sees that I shut the lid and puts it in sleep mode instead of just continuing the shutdown. I wake it up to watch it shut down seconds later. And now the battery is at 35%. A few chess games with the computer mercilessly killing me and the battery was at critical. So I found my thoughts filling the remaining hour and a half flight.

Wait a minute. My license. Not current. No temp license? Didn’t I have to rent a car? SIGH. I mustered up as much machismo was left in me and strutted to the Alamo rental counter. And put my credit card in the self-check in. Better to avoid human contact as much as possible. So I walked out to pick up the car and showed the man my printed out paperwork. He said choose one and go. Really? I thought. This was way too easy! A huge smile cracked on my face as I strolled to my chevy cobalt and started her up. Wow! Haha! Oh, they check you out when you leave the garage. I explained my situation (heres where all the built up machismo and confidence came in. Actually, instead of machismo leaking out after time, if you don’t vent it, it just continues to build.) about how I left my temp license at home, and if you would just punch my license number in to the machine you’ll see its current (well, I wanted them to have a machine like that at least) She said go to her manager to get approval, and I confidently backed the car out and went back to the first gentlemen. Psyching myself up, I walked in with an arrogance that you could almost see pouring off of me. I explained again with a slight crook tugging up on one side of my lips. I wish I had recorded it. There was no way to say no to me at that moment in time. The man called me sir reverently (not like the cheesy “yes sir have a good trip (er whatever)” More like he wanted to call me “sire.” I got his signature and walked out with a real smile. I drove right by and flashed my sig at the lady out back and drove off. THANK YOU LORD.

I had 10 hours till the flight to Curacao and I was only about 225 miles from Miami. I drove leisurely down the Florida Turnpike and stopped to get some coffee for good measure. Of all the things to do, I threw the keys in the trunk and shut it. I was dumbfounded. I just watched myself do it. Well, at least the car was open, and theres got to be a way into the trunk, right? Wrong. the seats did not fold down. Luckily, it looks like they were designed to fold down but just no release was set in place so I went about pulling on the top of the seat and shoving my arm painfully inside. I moved my bag aside and felt about for a few minutes before I started to use Karl's flipflop as a tool to find the keys. Success! I found them and dragged them to me.

Once that was over, I decided that I’d kill time by stopping by Miami beach on the way to the airport. I was too wired from the night’s happenings to sleep anyhow. I went in the direction of the beach when I crossed the Miami line, and found a good spot to leave the car. I took my camera and started walking down the beach. Some of the most beautiful architecture is done with these beach-side condo high rises. The beach was a nice as I remember, and the moon was bright, adding a romantic element to it all. I trudged up the beach for a few miles and decided I’d wait for the sun to rise, take some nice pictures and revel in the view. I turned back toward the car when the first light broke and watched. I found a chair and sat down, took in the beauty of it all. I took some pictures…..and fell asleep in the chair. I awoke groggy as all get-out about 15 minutes later when someone started yelling that they found some chairs to watch the sun rise in. So I gained what was left of my energy and trudged back towards the car. I was asleep while walking and still had a few miles to go. I had to think of something to keep me up, so I started running. I returned to the car no more awake then when I had wiped the drool from my face on the chair. Now I had about 3 hours to find the Miami airport, check in, and go to the Caribbean. No problem. Right? Being tired really didn’t help my directional skills, and REALLY didn’t help when I followed signs that pointed toward the airport then suddenly ended giving no more direction right before a 4 way stop. I never picked the right one. 2.5 hours till my flight left I found it. I found the airport. I was stinky, dressed in running clothes, and needed to find a way to clean up. I drove through the airport (which was having a considerable amount of construction done) and tried to find the rental return. I couldn’t find it, and ended up on a highway out of the airport. My tired self decided to take the first exit and turn right back around and go into the airport that way. No such luck. I was mere 50 yards from the airport with no way into it for about 30 minutes. Driving in now morning rush hour traffic desperately trying to find the stinkin’ entrance. Getting more and more enraged at the ridiculous system of roads they had in Miami I drove madly out and around the whole city trying to find ANY major road that would lead in the right direction. I went from Ghetto to downtown and still no real roads. I stopped in a gas station and changed into my nice shirt and slacks, dodging puddles of urine and stench too foul to recall. Phew, I stink. I finally found a major highway and followed that right to the airport. Here came the frustrating part: The rental return (for which there were signs ALL over the place for) took me in a circle. A circle that is endless unless you decide to not believe one of the signs and take a chance on where to go. After circling the airport 3 times I made my calculated move. I ended right back up in the loop. I stopped the car in a rage and called the rental idiots who had put all those confusing signs up at obvious locations (like where there were no turns, it would say “continue on this road for RENTAL RETURN” ) and no signs where you were given 14 choices of where to go. They apologized and told me how to get there (which, after all that, wasn’t even in the airport) and I returned the car.

45 minutes till the flight left. Miami airport sucked. LINES AND LINES AND LINES. I finally was able to shake some of the groggs off with a stem of machismo. I stalked up to a counter and forcefully used a self check in that some one was leaning on. I was “checking in too late” again. I asked the lady at the counter with a sly look on my face what she could do for me. She immediately handed me a boarding pass for first class and said “you’d better get movin’ hun” I ran and ran to the security check point and ran some more through it. Semi short lines were my saving grace. I got to the check in counter about 10 minutes before the flight left and there was a HUGE line in front of the counter. After waiting for about 3 minutes I figured out that that was the line to Haiti. Ok, here we go tired Charlie, this way. I boarded the plane and fell into my huge chair. I was on the way to Curacao finally.