A Comedy of Errors

I’m back from London and the Chelsea Flower Show. It was an adventure getting to London. The photos below are from the rhododendron area at Kew Gardens and are not related to my post below.

Prior to leaving for London, I wanted to ensure that my garden would be watered in my absence. My supervisor came over and helped me tighten up the connections to the drip system. I was feeling secure that my garden watered. I set the timer for the drip system to water three times a week. I went to work the next day thinking all is well.

When I returned home, I found watering pooling on the tile floor in the family room. I was panic stricken. I called my friend Bill who wasn't home; but his wife Katie offered a tool for me to use for turning off the water at the meter. I was wondering if this was beyond my mechanical ability, but turned to my reliable DIY guru YouTube. The first video I found gave clear instructions on how to turn off the water at the meter; a 90 degree clockwise turn was all that was needed.

My friend Katie also advised me to contact the dog sitter and have her bring water daily for my dog Aster. I went to the store and bought two gallons of water for the dog sitter to refill at her house. I wasn't sure of I should cancel my trip because of the water situation and was angst ridden.

The next day, I flew out of the Santa Fe airport. The flight has a 90% on time rate. We were on the runway for a while because of some storms in Dallas. The flight finally took off. As we neared Dallas, the plane was in a holding pattern. We waited for the weather to clear, but were eventually diverted to Abilene, Texas.

We waited on the runway until TSA staff could return to the airport for security reasons because the airport was closed. Someone at the airport ordered pizza for our dinner. Kudos to the airport staff in Abilene for all they did to help us. I found out later that there were devastating tornadoes in Dallas and that DFW was closed. The airline provided hotel and taxi vouchers. The taxi vouchers were only for one cab company. It looked like it would be a long wait for a cab that took vouchers. However, there was a business man from another flight that had been diverted who generously paid for the cab to the hotel from the cab company that didn't take vouchers. A few of us jumped in the taxi-van and were grateful for not having to wait.

Sleep was fitful. The next day the power was out at the Abilene airport and it was running on backup generators. The remaining passengers who didn't drive to Dallas from Abilene in rental cars got on the flight the next morning. It felt like a chartered flight because there were only about 10 of us on the plane. I hung out at the Dallas airport for about 10 hours.

The next flight leaving for London departed at 7:30 pm. I learned a lot about DFW while waiting. They have WiFi lounges on the domestic side to charge electronics and surf the web and email. However, the international terminal only had charging kiosks, but WiFi was available, too if you know how to access it. I had yummy Popeye's fried chicken for lunch. Something that isn't available in Santa Fe.

I finally boarded the plane and was ensconced in my seat belt when a fellow passenger came up to me holding a ticket for the same seat number. One of the flight attendants found another seat for him and we finally departed for London. Whew, what a challenging few days.

All's well that ends well???