At 3:00pm MST on December 27th, the Rees Family was snuggled together at the Gregory house in Fort Collins, CO, cozy by a fire, under blankets, eating Christmas snacks. 13 hours later, at 3:00am PST, we were huddled with our luggage in the bike lane of a foggy, empty street waiting for a man we'd never met before- Hal losing his ability to speak, and Mae unable to walk smoothly.
It started out ok. We drove to the Denver airport. Got there on time. Got through security without issue. Found our gate. Flight boarded when it was supposed to. We had a little delay due to a mechanical issue, but soon we were in the air, on our way to the San Luis Obispo airport. I was thinking my kids might be tired by the time we got home that night, because it'd be an hour later than when they'd been going to bed. But things were going smoothly. Our friend Dallan was planning on picking us up to drive us home.
At around 9:28pm, just 10 minutes away from our destination, the pilot comes on to tell us that because of low visibility, we're diverting to LAX. LAX!! The whole plane couldn't believe what was happening, and I felt bad for the flight attendants fielding all the panicked questions. "Did they even CHECK Santa Maria airport?" "This has never happened to me!" "Are they going to put us up in hotels?" "Los Angeles? They're just abandoning us in Los Angeles?"
We land in LA just after 10:00pm, but have to sit in the plane on the tarmac for an open gate. Finally, we begin deboarding at 10:45, and the kids and I wearily make our way to baggage claim with the rest of the pilgrims, as Gordon bravely finds a customer service rep to discuss options. We think maybe they'll comp a rental car, and we'll drive home late. Or they'll rebook us for the next day, and put us up at a hotel.
Instead, they announce that they've provided two buses to get everyone up to San Luis Obispo. At this point, I'm realizing we'll be getting to the SLO airport at an hour when no public transportation will be running, all of our friends will be asleep, the taxi service is practically non-existent, and what few Uber/Lyft options there are will be highly overtaxed. United Airlines obviously does not care about this, though. They said they'd get us to SLO airport, so they'll get us to SLO airport. We thought about renting a car on our own, but there were none available that we could find.
So, we join the huddled masses outside LAX waiting for a bus, and finally get on the road after midnight. Tired, wired, and wondering if we'll be spending a few hours on the other end waiting for things to start waking up. The kids are a little wide-eyed, and unsure about the future, but so far have good attitudes.
We consider all kinds of options. We think maybe we could talk someone into getting into our house with a spare key, getting our car key, and driving our car down to be waiting for us. But we can only think of a few people we could ask, and one set has a baby at home, one set happens to be on a basketball trip to Bakersfield, and one set has a really early morning planned the next day, and we just didn't feel like we could ask more of them. So, we decide to just head for SLO and figure it out as we go.
However, the entire group of passengers starts to get antsy at 1:45 when the bus inexplicable pulls over a little north of Goleta, and the bus driver gets off for a few minutes. He finally gets back on and keeps driving, but everyone was on edge, wondering of the bus was having mechanical issues, and we were going to have to wait for another bus to come get us. (To entertain myself, I was inventing plotlines, like he was collecting a shipment of drugs)
The good news is that Gordon is quick on the Uber uptake, and reserves us a ride before options disappear. The bad news is that the fog starts to thicken, slowing our progress, and we start to get nervous anew about how long this will actually take.
But we pull up at the airport at 3:22 (Hal and I have not slept a wink), grab our bags, and head for where we're supposed to meet our Uber, which happens to be just outside airport grounds (Uber wouldn't let us select anywhere on the grounds). Mae can barely get her legs to work because she's still half asleep, and Hal looks like he's coming off a heroin high.
Turns out the driver assumed we meant to be picked up at the airport, on not on the side of some random road, so Gordon and I load up all our luggage, and we prod the kids back across the street and back to the airport. We get in a very nice car, driven by a very nice man, and spend the last 30 minutes of our long journey listening to soothing Christmas music in Arabic.
The last of us drift off to sleep around 5:00am PST (6:00am MST), and I don't think any of us have ever been happier to be in our own home before. The kids were real troopers, though, and in the light of a new day, see it as an adventure, but one they never want to repeat.
