It was bound to happen. Murphy's Law finally caught up with me.
I arrived at the Newark airport for my flight to Phoenix via Atlanta on time. Found out this flight was delayed by two hours. The computer refused to issue my boarding pass. Then they told me the plane is no longer proceeding to Phoenix. The nice young lady, twenty-something, at the front counter tried to get me on the other airlines but everything was fully booked. She offered to book me on their first flight the next day, 5:20 a.m. - what choice did I have? She reserved a room for me at the Holiday Inn - which was good. But she also told me that I have to have my entire luggage with me, and I couldn't check them in until the next day - baaaad. She added that the straps of two of my checked-in bags broke, so I had to go to the baggage services downstairs to sign a claim form - darn.
There were courtesy vans to transport travelers to and from the different hotels for free - good. To get to the parking lot I had to take the monorail - oh, goody. But the platform was located another floor up - shit. To save money I tried lugging all my five bags from one end of the terminal to the other, only to find out when I got there that there was no way I could bring them up the escalator. A porter took pity on me and put my heaviest, biggest bags on his stroller. I gave him $5 because that was the smallest bill I had. I went through all that trouble and I still ended up paying - stupid.
There's more. The hotel didn't have bellhops. The driver helped me bring in my luggage, and another one helped me up to my room. I managed to have my $20 broken down to $1 bills at the hotel restaurant for tipping.
I convinced the second driver to leave the trolley in my room even though this was against their policy. Went down to the restaurant for a late supper at 9:00 p.m. The nice lady at the Delta counter (what an angel) also gave me a meal voucher for my supper (good). But the coupon was worth only $10, and my bill was over $24 (sigh).
Wait, it gets better. Woke up late, arrived at the airport panting after carrying my #%z*&x<# luggage over the escalator, and found another lady, forty-something, behind the counter who told me "You can't make it, it's already 5:19 and your flight is 5:20." I was ready to cry. All I had in my wallet was $50. I was afraid that I had to pay extra charges to get another booking. The lady, bless her, felt sorry for me. Just as quickly she said, "Wait, hold on…" and promptly booked me on the 8:20 flight, no fines, no fees. She even found a box to hold my broken bag. Another angel! The flight to Atlanta served snacks, and the one to Phoenix had lunch. Had a brief scary moment at the Phoenix airport because my uncle was half an hour late. When we got to his house I dropped and broke my camera as I got out of his van. Just grrrreat.
That day and the next day after all I did was sleep and rest. I had two purple bruises on my thigh and cramps in my upper body from carrying my luggage. I also had to catch up on about three hours of jetlag.
Saturday and Sunday were wonderful. They might have made all that trouble worth it (I don't know, I still have to see how the pictures came out.) My uncle, his sister-in-law, and my cousins brought me to several national parks and forests. Grand Canyon was too far for a daytrip, but so what? The trip to a drive-in-canyon in the river country on the first day bowled me over. The kids thought I was funny because I kept saying "Wow!" every five minutes. On the second day we went to the central country, and this time all I could do was sigh because the view from every angle left me breathless. Every mountain, every rock formation, every pile of boulders seemed to be screaming "mount me!" (don't laugh, isn't that the rootword for mountain?). I know I need at least two weeks to acclimatize and train myself before I could go trekking anywhere. The weather here in Phoenix is 96 F - hotter than Cebu. I would be smitten by heatstroke in less than an hour. It is just well I didn't book that trip to Grand Canyon. In Flagstaff, the weather there is 60 F by day, and freezing cold 30 F at night.
I thought I was over it, but Sunday night, to my chagrin I realized I didn't have Indah's new phone number, after all. She wrote it on the directory that I left in the hotel in Orlando. Not again! What if she forgot that I was arriving tomorrow? How will I reach her? I called Cebu to ask Lysle to find out Indah's number from her sister Irma, but Lysle is on leave. I felt awful asking my boss Jerry to do this favor for me.
I was not even sure if I made any sense to him because I was stammering in Surigaonon. I had no reason to panic. I trust that Indah will remember my schedule and be there to meet me in LA. Monday is Memorial Day, and therefore a holiday.
When I tried to check in for my flight to LA, I received three more jolts: first, my reservation was cancelled from the computer, probably because of the mix-up in Newark. Second, I was told this flight goes to Palm Springs - is that anywhere near LA? Third, there was no plane, nothing, nada, at the end of the tube when I tried to board my plane.
Like that scene in "Dumb and Dumber" except that I didn't fall out of the door. Oh God, this can't be happening to me again, did the plane actually leave five minutes ahead of schedule? Shaken and stirred, I went back to the guy at the boarding gate. "Sir, the plane is no longer there." He patiently guided me to the window and pointed to a 19-seater propellered aircraft down the tarmac, "That's your plane and you need to go down the stairs to get to it." Well, d'uh! Why didn't you say so before?
We flew to Palm Springs, waited for fifteen minutes, and proceeded to LA. Oh, I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Quickly spotted Indah in a crowded hallway. Why didn't she wait for me at the waiting area? She forgot my flight number. What if I was looking the other way and we missed each other? I didn't have my glasses on, and neither did she. Had a long uneasy wait for my baggage. We were the only ones there, none of my fellow passengers around. Didn't anybody else check in anything? We made certain we were at the right baggage carousel. At the rate my luck was holding, I wouldn't be surprised if my baggage didn't make it to LA. But somebody up there likes me, and my bags popped out of the chute. "All that electricity wasted for your luggage alone," Ralph teased me.
That's it, I hope there won't be any more surprises when I get on my Singapore/Silkair flights back to Cebu.