A Minor Diversion

We're in Florida! Zachary, Meh, and I braved the journey to scenic West Palm Beach to visit Mima and Papa, as well as (let's see if I can enumerate them fully) nanny (Zachary's great-grandmother), poppy (Zachary's great-grandfather), Aunt K, Uncle H, and Aunt M. Oh, and we met cousin E as well, as part of a gala family barbecue dinner at mima and papa's house this evening. But first, on to the epic adventure that was our journey to the Sunshine State.

Unfortunately, none of the airlines seem interested in plotting a direct route from Seattle to the Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale airports. Not that these are gigantic hub cities or anything, but still - shouldn't every other city in the country have a direct line to beaches and sunshine? The only real 'direct' option is Miami, which is still about 2 hours to Mima and Papa's house, and has fares that truly reflect the non-competition, going for $650+ when I checked months in advance. So every time we visit, we get to enjoy a different airline's hub city and a few extra hours tacked onto the journey. Sometimes this is actually a nice break. Not so this time.

One big problem I have with the hub and spoke model is that you end up flying to arbitrary locations that may or may not be even remotely close to a straight arc from departure to arrival city. We at least are usually able to avoid the ones that are obviously in the wrong direction (though a friend once explained how this is a great way to exploit the airlines via mileage runs. Honestly, I fly enough that I don't want to invent additional flights just to get more miles.) This time, we picked scenic George Bush Airport in Houston. Unfortunately, we also picked a week where the airport would apparently be fully shut down multiple times due to thunderstorms -- and yup, we got to enjoy one of these events.

Zachary for his part was amazing on the flights - happy, talking up a storm, playing with his toys, and eating occasional snacks in between walking up and down the aisles with us. We did have a wardrobe malfunction, where his outfit leaked onto mommy pretty early into the first flight, creating some early stress (only one backup outfit) and discomfort (no backup outfit for mommy) that was a good preview of the stress of the extended delays that would ensue. As we approached Houston (on time), the captain came on the PA, announcing Houston was closed due to thunderstorms, and we were going to do circles for the next 30+ minutes waiting for it to open. When it didn't in 60 minutes, we were rerouted to Austin to refuel. Of course, every other plane heading for Houston had been rerouted as well, so we sat on the tarmac waiting for the 2 fuel trucks on duty that day to deal with the thirty planes sitting around us. 90 minutes later, we were done refueling, and had to wait for clearance to land in Houston before we could take off. 30 minutes later, we were back in the air for the short flight back to Houston.

By this time, the crew had exhausted most of the onboard supplies (not to mention themselves; an attendant had to waive his right to go off duty 16 hours after starting his shift, in order for the flight to not get scrubbed in Austin), including drinkable water. So Zachary got his first taste of fizzy water with a splash of juice. The faces were precious puckers and shivers of surprise(unfortunately not photographed), but he clearly wasn't a fan. We landed in Houston to an obvious state of bedlam - lots of cancelled, delayed, and still-not-arrived flights. And here came the second problem of the hub & spoke model: when every flight connects through a single city, late incoming flights mean later outgoing flights. Our own outgoing flight (due to leave two hours before we'd landed) hadn't even arrived yet.

Zachary still handled things pretty well, first strolling around in his car seat's wheeled adapter and then taking the adapter itself for a push around the terminal. But even he was totally fried and eventually needed to be held by mommy while she sang the same song over and over. The flight finally arrived, unloaded, re-boarded, and left, and Zachary again did very well and even slept a bit (in between more wokka wokka-ing) as our now long haul to Florida wrapped up a little after 3 am, more than 4.5 hours after we'd been scheduled to arrive, and 15+ hours after we'd headed to the airport. Oh, and here's a time lapse set of videos of Zachary's in-flight commentaries:





We all slept pretty late today; even Zachary wasn't up until 10 am. He's been very happy to see mima and papa, and has played a lot with them and their fun toys (including a toy piano that he plays and sings along with in a very cute way). And when the family arrived for the barbecue this evening, they brought his new favorites of this trip: pushable cars and trucks (did you expect something else?), both finger-sized and Zachary-sized! Through most of dinner he was pushing his Spiderman pushcart around the patio, to the delight of the guests. He was still pretty exhausted and was ready to crash before folks had left, though I think we'll get to see nanny and poppy again later in the week. A wild and full first day!