Unexpected Day in Fort Worth

Joey and I got up early on Thursday, 19 June 2008, to travel to Troy and Christinne’s wedding in Cozumel, Mexico. We boarded the plane in Austin at 5:45 am for the forty minute flight to DFW. From DFW we were catching a connecting flight to Cozumel at 10:25 am. If any sane person had to guess, they would say five hours is plenty of time to get from Austin to DFW, find the correct gate, and board the second plane. If they were on our flight, AA1038, they would have been wrong.

As we approached DFW, the pilot announced that we would have to circle for a about twenty minutes due to some thunderstorms that meant no planes could land at DFW. The air was smooth, no bumps or anything from our perspective, but if they say there are thunderstorms, we sit tight. Twenty minutes stretched to forty-five. Now the pilot tells us we are running low on fuel (never good), and that we have been instructed by air traffic control to fly back to Austin to refuel. We head back the way we came, and by 8:30 am were back on the ground in Austin. Over the next two hours the pilot kept us informed about the status of taking off for DFW again; it boiled down this: no planes bound for DFW were allowed to take off, period.

So we sat on the plane – we decided staying where we were was our best bet, and that if our flight was delayed, then lots of other stuff (hopefully including our connecting flight) was also delayed. Joey and I entertained ourselves with music trivia, a game where Joey plays a song for me, and I guess who wrote and/or performed it. We also passed the time watching the other people on the plane freak right out! Angry business men, a guy trying to get to Korea, and a family trying to make it to grandma’s house in Louisville, KY kept us from focusing too much on our own delay.

At about 10:45 we finally left Austin again. We landed in DFW at 11:23, as it turns out, this was three minutes AFTER our flight to Cozumel left! No problem. We are on vacation! We called up Kathlyne to see if she was free, and could come pick us up. She came all the way to the airport from Fort Worth and picked us up, but not before I managed to suck down a very large margarita.

Kathlyne and Ross graciously let us crash at their place for the night. Joey and I decided that this was a pleasant twist of events since we had just been lamenting that we had not seen our friends in Fort Worth for too long! We had a great afternoon hanging out with Kathlyne. Once Ross got home we all piled in the car and drove to Denton to visit with Laura, and surprise Jason at work. We had a great meal at Chili’s, and enjoyed a fine evening together.

While at Chili’s Ross decided to cut his corn in half (don’t ask me – I have given up trying to understand Ross). Laura was really giving him a hard time. After much fussing, grinding away at the corn cob with a blunt knife, and switching of knives, Ross and Laura finally each took an end of the corn cob and broke it in half. I managed to get the camera out quickly enough to capture the action for your viewing pleasure!

After dinner Kathlyne guided Ross and me through a yoga workout, and Joey edited pictures and worked on burning some stuff to CD for Ross and Kathlyne. We turned in at the end of a long, but, in the end, very enjoyable day. The next morning, Kathlyne took us to the airport, and we got onto the flight to Cozumel without any trouble or fanfare. We finally made it to Mexico safe and sound, albeit twenty-four hours later than expected. Our luggage even made the flight with us!