“OK, Texas”
5/5/17, “Delayed”
LaGuardia Airport, New York (LGA)
This is how I am spending Cinco de Mayo, delayed in an
airport. It is not a small delay. It is a big one. I do not expect to make it to DFW tonight,
which would mean I miss out on stopping at Waco tomorrow. If that is all I lose from this delay, I will
consider it lucky. As it stands now, I
should still be able to make it to the National Memorial in Oklahoma City
before it closes, and that was the main purpose of the trip.
That said, I am considering other
options. I am now connecting in ATL, but
I do not expect to make that connection.
I can try to fly standby on an earlier flight to ATL. I am considering a direct flight to an
airport in Northwest Arkansas, which is rather close to Oklahoma, but that
would still mean forfeiting the visit to Waco, and that flight may actually
wind up getting cancelled anyway, along with the exorbitant price I would have
to pay for the one-way car rental from XNA to DFW. ATL is a nice airport, and it has a smoking
lounge. Spending the night there is not
the worst thing in the world, just a little annoying. Whatever the next dateline is will explain
what occurred, as I will write another entry tonight no matter what. This is usually the space, though, where I
would write some deep philosophical or political prologue to the trip, but I am
not in the mood at all.
Last night I resumed
my movie and pizza Thursdays with the K-Man, and we went to our favorite spot,
California Pizza Kitchen. I had eaten
too much during the day, so I didn’t have my usual appetite, and neither did
he. We each just got a pizza, which was
plenty. We had no appetite for snacks at
the theatre, but I did get my soda. We
saw Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, which was amazing, one of the best Marvel
movies of all time, easily top five. We
then said our goodbyes, and I headed home to pack and play Zelda before I went
to bed.
It was pouring out all day, and
I had a bagel with lox and cream cheese for breakfast. I got soaked when I went to Hop Won to get my
usual pre-departure lunch. I then went
back to the office and began work on a project I had been delaying for far too
long. Around 2:30 PM, I got a notice
that my flight was cancelled and that I was being rebooked for the morning on a
flight that would not get me to DFW until midday. No, that wouldn’t do. I realized that, if I left the office
immediately, I could rebook on an LGA-ATL-DFW flight path, so I left and caught a taxi to LGA.
This would still get me to DFW tonight. Well, the LGA-ATL flight kept getting pushed
back. There was an earlier LGA-DFW
flight, but it was already overbooked. I
kept having to go to different agents, who were not always a short walk apart,
to explore different options. Nothing was
looking good. Then the LGA-ATL flight
got delayed an hour too much, and it was no longer possible to make my
connection. I again considered different
options, including the flight to Northwest Arkansas, but staying on the flight
with the overnight layover in ATL seemed the best option. Once I finally gave up on getting west of the
Mississippi tonight, I went to my gate, where I sat down and proceeded to write
this entry, which I will now close so that I can see if there had been updates
and then play Zelda.
Waco, Texas
That was certainly not the dateline I expected to be
writing tonight, not at all, but is there a more infamous city in the
country? Waco is known, not because it
is a center of population of industry, but because of the tragic siege that
occurred here 24 years ago. Tomorrow, in
addition to visiting the Mount Carmel Center, I will also be visiting the site
of another tragedy from that time period, in Oklahoma City. It is late (almost 5 AM New York time, 4 AM
local time), but I made it, and that’s what matters. I will be as brief as I can so that I can get
some semblance of a night’s sleep before I begin my day tomorrow.
After I closed at LGA, I went to an agent and
asked to be put on standby for an earlier flight to ATL. He said I would be, I think, 15th. I didn’t like my chances, but I went to that
gate and started playing Zelda, making some good progress. They called a few names for standby, but I
was only half paying attention. Then I
heard it, “Margolin, Steven.” Wait,
what? I literally jumped out of my seat,
tearing my cell phone charger out of the outlet as I got up, and went to the
counter. Yes, they had a seat for me. However, this flight was still cutting it
close. It would be on the ground at ATL
shortly before 10 PM, and the flight to DFW was at 10:28 PM. It was not in the same concourse. I didn’t like my chances.
I played Zelda and then checked the status
when we were airborne. Lo and behold!
the ATL-DFW flight was delayed until 11:30 PM.
Happy happy joy joy! I would have
time for a quick dinner and a quick cigar at the smoking lounge before my
flight. I made more good progress on
Zelda during the flight, but I didn’t get quite as far as I had hoped to get
for the day, so I planned to play some more on the ATL-DFW flight.
We landed, and I stopped at Atlanta Bread
Company (called Panera Bread Company outside of the Southeast) to pick up a chicken
sandwich, which I took to the smoking lounge by my gate. It is always an interesting class of
characters you always find inside an airport smoking lounge. I lit up a Graycliff and ate my dinner in the
smoking lounge. For 20 brief minutes, I
was happy. Nothing else mattered, I was
truly in heaven, eating and smoking and knowing that I would actually get to
Texas tonight, no matter how late it was.
I had thought Waco was only 45 minutes from DFW. It was actually twice that. I would not get to my hotel before 3 AM local
time.
I had to cut my cigar short to get
to the gate, but, when I got there, I learned that the flight was being further
delayed. It seemed that the reason was,
the flight crew for the flight was, get this, the same flight crew from the
LGA-ATL flight I had been originally planning on taking. In other words, I would have been fine on
that flight, since they couldn’t board until the flight crew arrived anyway. I didn’t care about the delay, though I was
annoyed I didn’t finish my cigar. I also
knew I would need to nap on the flight, instead of playing more Zelda. It was a completely full flight, and there
was a long standby list, yet, somehow, the middle seat next to me wound up
being empty. I didn’t ask questions, and
I was able to get a full REM cycle en route.
We landed, and I headed to the rental car area, where I got my car. I lit up a Montecristo Open Eagle, and it was
an easy drive to the hotel, which was right off the highway. After about an hour and a half, I saw the
familiar neon hexagon of Hampton Inn. I
still had some cigar left, and I had gotten a smoking room, so I would be able
to finish the cigar during my entry.
There was a bit of an issue at check-in, since they wipe the unclaimed
reservations at 2 AM, but they fixed it no problem. I went to my room, where I sat down by the
window, relit my cigar, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now
close so that I can get some sleep before my day tomorrow.
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