Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Orlando, FL - Day One

About a year ago, a friend of mine, Kerry, and her husband moved from living in the KC metro area to Orlando, Florida due to an employment opportunity. After nearly a year of saying, "yeah, we'll come and visit", we finally booked the flight and headed out.

After working all day, and George working a half day on Friday we took off from Kansas City to Atlanta where we would have a 2 hour layover. On our first flight as we were lining up for departure we were chatting about previous flight experiences and getting stuck just sitting on the runway. I boasted that I had never had much difficulty once boarding a plane, while George had several stories. We then took off for a uneventful flight and looked forward to the trip ahead.

Since we were short on time getting from work to the airport we skipped dinner, and were quite hungry by the time we arrived in Atlanta. We found an airport restaurant for dinner and quietly waited for our flight, sitting back, watching the commotion that airports so often have. There were families on spring break, young college students, business men and women trying to get home, one young daughter was hanging on to the pull bar of a luggage bag, with her legs wrapped securely around the bag, as her mother pulled her to their destination.

We boarded the plane and got settled in for the next leg of the journey. Of course, as I had boasted before, the Lord showed me different. A severe thunder storm barreled over the Atlanta airport as we sat on the runway, grounded until further notice. We sat for an hour as they tried to keep us informed and comfortable, handing out water bottles. The next day we found out how bad the storm truly was, and the extensive damage the Atlanta area experienced. Needless to say, it was worth being late.

We arrive in Orlando at about 12:45am local time. We met up with Dan and Kerry, and headed to their home for a much needed night of sleep.

2 comments:

Other Mother said...

One of the north Georgia tornadoes was within a couple of blocks of Uncle Victor and Aunt Elaine.

strem said...

Even though it surely wasn't a fun wait, I am glad you were able to wait on the ground instead of being up in the air in the midst of a storm. I think that was the case the last time I was on a plane with George, and that was not a fun experience!!! So happy about your trip!