Travel days

I did not adequately describe our travel day on Friday.  In fact, the way I wrote it, it sounds like we were delayed three hours. That is not the case. The plane was delayed three hours, but since the airport was on lockdown, we could not board that plane. I'd be surprised if anyone was on that flight. No, we were sitting in the cafe of a Marriott Courtyard a few blocks from the airport with a bunch of other stranded travelers. We were trying to keep Mo entertained while we checked the flight and airport status updates.  The communication was awful. There was little to no information about what was going on or whether we could expect the flights to start up again. Every once in a while, one of us would walk up the street to ask the cops stationed there if the airport was opening again. The streets were filled with people and their luggage.  It was a crazy scene. Eventually, we could see that the flight was not delayed anymore and so we decided to bring our luggage out to the street.  We sat on the curb for a while, watching floods of people leave the airport arrivals ramps on foot, pushing and pulling luggage.  Then seemingly out of nowhere, thousands of people started walking up Century Blvd - up, up, up the departures ramp. It was crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w78lZ0cluLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFZKSVH1PA

We walked to terminal four - to get there meant having to bypass terminal three, where the shooting occurred and which was still a crime scene . We had to go down an escalator at two, walk past terminal three and Bradley international on foot, before arriving at our destination. Once we got there, we learned our plane had left without us.  So we got in line with hundreds of other hopeful re- routers.  Someone handed Ted a card with the Arline's phone number and once we'd gotten about halfway through the line, the service rep had arranged for us to get on a 9:30 flight to Orlando, with a connecting flight to Miami.  Our original flight was scheduled for 1:30. Our eventual flight didn't take off until nearly 11.  Considering all of that, I'd say my kid is the worlds biggest trooper!  He had one brief meltdown while we boarded the plane, but as soon as the cabin lights went out, so did he.  We had to rent a car at our final destination amd drive 1.5 hours south to the keyes.  He napped when we got to Isla Morada for a couple of hours and then powered through five hours of wedding celebrations! We woke up early Sunday morning, drove back to the airport, flew to San Jose, Costa Rica, had a three hour layover before getting on another plane to Manuel Antonio. He was in a great mood all day, was really easy and had a lot of fun crawling around airport terminals. I actually think it would have been worse without him. At least he kept us entertained and busy!

Anyway, we are here and very aware that what was for us an inconvenience, was for many other people the most tragic day of their lives.