Journey, Part 1

Every journey begins with a single step and this one began not even with me taking that single step.

It was Vincent's journey that spurred my mine and so all the credit for this post and everything that we did or experienced ( good or bad, you’ll find out why I said that, as you keep reading) goes to him. 

When he did the Camino and came home, he went on and on about it (and still does) and that is what gave me this idea that maybe I should do it too, not the entire 700+ kilometers, but the last 100, which would still get you the coveted certificate.

 And unlike my husband, I cannot imagine walking alone. Cue the music! I have managed to reconnect with a couple of friends from my college days and we decided that we would maybe walk the Camino together. But that is still a long time away. 

In the meanwhile,Vincent discovered that there is a much smaller Camino, an almost 13 mile one, here in San Antonio, Texas which sounded intriguing. We did want to walk the original one, but were wondering how to see if we would be able to walk together and make the distance in a decent time and also not start hating each other on account of the proximity. 

This one day trip seemed the perfect way to find out. So we planned and plotted.

 After a couple of probable dates fell through, we finally settled on October 25th of this year. And my sweet family decided they were coming too! Well, the more the merrier. 

The flight tickets were booked, the hotel room was reserved and the car rental was paid for and we were eagerly anticipating the walk. We all had practiced on a minor level by ourselves and felt we could manage the trek.

So one friend was coming in from Dallas. The other was an Austin native and we were flying in from Portland. We were arriving close to midnight on Thursday, spending a day sightseeing Austin, walking on Saturday and leaving on Sunday. 

By Wednesday our bags were packed, and we were all eagerly awaiting the trip. Also Portlanders like us were looking forward to the 80 degree weather that was forecast for Austin and San Antonio.  Perfect! Could things be more perfect? 

Thursday dawned bright and early and we left for the airport late afternoon for the evening flight. We all are sticklers for time in my house, so we managed to clear security and get to the gate, way before actual boarding.

Portland airport is a sight to behold. Lofty wooden ceilings and lush greenery effectively mask the hustle bustle of a typical airport. The food scene in Portland is world renowned and the airport is no exception. So we all went to our favorite places and bought dinner to eat on the plane.

I kept my friends updated on our flight time and finally boarding time rolled in. Except we weren't boarding. The minutes ticked by and I started to fret about the car rental in Austin closing at 1.00 a.m and hoping we would get there before that. And the minutes still swept on and nothing happened. Finally around the time that we should have actually taken off, the announcement came that Alaska Airlines had declared a groundstop. What in the world is a groundstop?

 This is what Google spits out if you search for it:

'A ground stop is a temporary restriction on an airport where air traffic control requires aircraft to remain on the ground at their origin airport to manage traffic flow, often due to severe weather, staffing issues, or other operational problems.'

And that was where we were. They had turned off the monitors at the gate and we were looking at the check in desk at the gate for any sign of hope. The stoic people at the gate gave us updates maybe every hour and it was never good news.

And we sat there and sat there, with every minute slipping by and  with our thoughts slipping ahead to the practical difficulty this threw at us. Checking in at Hertz was going to be a pain. The hotel, I needed to call and let them know we'd be late, but how late? We had no clue. So we were pacing around the gate area, and managed to eat the dinner we'd bought to eat on the plane. And ofcourse the phone for once was heaven sent. There were more updates  to be found online than the gate attendants were willing to give us. We knew the stop was nationwide and there were actually planes sitting on tarmacs all over the country, so we were relatively ok because we were inside the terminal with access to innumerable restrooms and restaurants and space to stretch our legs.

And wait we did. Poor Noe was distraught that we weren't on our way and we had to convince him repeatedly that we will soon be up in the air, though we weren't actually sure of it. Finally, at around 7.30 they said the groundstop had been lifted and we were boarding. Sweet!!

And by 8.00 p.m we were all seated and all that was left was to take off. Austin, here we come!

But 10 minutes later, we had yet another update from the Pilot. He hadn't gotten the final flight plan and had to wait..obviously there was a back log. Fine, whatever, we were seated and like they say, we had nowhere else to go but up, right??  Nope, oh nope, one can never underestimate how much further down one can go in some freaky circumstances. 

And hour later, yet another announcement: No finalized flight plans yet. However there was an escape clause: if you were done with this nonsense, you could deplane and get a full refund for your trip at the ticket counter.  About 30 smart people did walk out the plane at that point. We were obviously not in that gang. 

And we were seated in Economy Premium and had to watch the First Class passengers being offered snacks and drinks while we, the hoi polloi were only allowed to use the restroom. When one guy asked for wine, he was offered water (Jesus in reverse!) and told he could have wine after  takeoff. Another wound in an already hurting wound!!

Around 10.15 p.m the final final announcement: since the groundstop had stretched beyond maximum  allowed working hours for the crew, they had timed out. So whether we had the flight plans finalized or not, we had no crew to take us to Austin.

Damn! Have you felt hopeless and furious and guilty and sleepy and tired all at the same, same time? I have, when I was a new mom, it's called post partum depression, but hey ironically Manny was an hour or so away from turning 25 and here I was feeling way past post partum depression. And I had company. Poor Noe was so unhappy and was almost begging to go and we were convincing him that we would go the next day. We hopped off the plane and with just carry on luggage, we rushed to the gate and were told that the ticket counters had a lot of Alaska employees waiting eagerly and sympathetically to help us and we should rush there.

Rush we did, and the line there was fortunately, was only six people long. But the counter had just two employees helping out. What?? Where's the  bunch of sympathetic people? And as we watched the line started growing amd growing like Jack's beanstalk and was soon about a 100 people long and there were still only two people at the counter. And for some weird reason the passengers ahead of us had,  I don't know what kind of travel plan changes in mind,  it took a good forty five minutes to get through the six of them. By then we were not sure we'd even have seats on the flight the next day and we were almost convincing Noel that we would postpone the trip to maybe March of 2026. And since Vincent and Manny had taken off work anyway, we'd do stuff as a family that weekend. Never mind that an atmosphereic river had been forecast for  Portland for then. See how luck literally follows you and doesn't let go??

Anyway,  we got to the counter and in less than five minutes had our trip rescheduled for the next day and  got out of there. One of the highlights of that day actually. We came out of the airport, caught the shuttle, came to the parking lot, picked up our car and drove back home and stepped into the house at exactly 12.00 a.m October 24th.

And that is how Manny turned 25 in our garage!!

So we ended ( or began, depending on how you look at it) the day, older obviously, that experience aged us massively, but also wiser- we knew a bit of airplane jargon but I would have preferred just reading about it, not living it. But hey, we were home,  safe in bed, boarding passes ready for the flight the next day.  Like Scarlett says, "After all, tomorrow is another day". 

And the tomorrow that came after, was definitely something!

That deserves another post altogther!