Oh, Did I Forget to Finish That Story?

So...yeah, where was I, back in February? Coming home from the National Championship game (won, that's right). There was a lot of drama...but the funny thing about drama is, if you let it alone long enough, it pretty much evaporates.

Here's what's left of my grand finale:

Our crazy flight leg combo on the way out to Phoenix was duplicated in craziness, though not in airport connections, on the way back. We flew from Phoenix (where I left my Auburn car flag, on purpose)

It just seemed to belong there.

Then we flew to Long Beach, where the terminal is literally a double-wide with $8 bottles of Dasani. And a bar, which was of no use to me (since I had given up drinking some months prior to this trip), and of no use to my son (since he not yet 21...which means, of course, that a bar is of no use to him WHEN HE IS WITH HIS MOTHER). We were there for quite a long time before flying to Salt Lake City, where I went shopping in the airport, because I was positively certain that our flight, which was on Delta, would be canceled. Why was I so certain? Because I have never, ever been on a Delta flight that wasn't at least delayed by more than an hour, if not canceled outright, for no discernible reason whatsoever. And this time, Delta would have had reason, because there had been an Ice Storm of Epic Proportion in the Southeast, which had closed the airports in both Atlanta and Birmingham for a couple of days. The majority of friends with whom we'd connected at the game were still stuck in the west, because their flights into Atlanta or Birmingham the day before had all been canceled. Including the many, many folks who had thought akin to my husband to fly cheaply into Vegas and rent a car down to Phoenix. There were no flights from Vegas to Atlanta. Nada.

Our friends Rich and Kirsten had their flight from Tucson to Atlanta canceled as well, but (perhaps because they were stranded in Tucson and not Vegas?) they rented a car there and drove it BACK TO ALABAMA. Rich updated their progress on his facebook status, which was immensely entertaining. His facebook friends were placing bets as to who would get home first, them driving or those of us flying.

Amazingly, the Delta flight left Salt Lake, and it was only slightly delayed. We landed in Atlanta around 6 am , one of the very first flights allowed back in, to find that most of the roads were ice-covered and buried in snow; drivers were cautioned to STAY AWAY, or at the very least, wait until the sun rose and could do a little bit of snow removal. I agreed heartily, because one thing my Wisconsin years taught me is that I'd rather poke pencils in my eyes than drive in the snow. And ice? Rather poke pencils through my belly button.

Not so, James. He was panicked about missing his first class of the semester. Never mind that half the student body was stuck in Vegas, or elsewhere, waiting to be rebooked on some other flight. We had an irreconcilable difference of opinion, and since I'd used my one "Negotiate a Win over James" chip in obtaining his game ticket, he grabbed his bag and headed out the door to the parking garage, with or without me. Did I have an alternate means of getting back to Auburn? Nope. But my son did not care.

And I did not care that my son did not care. Because I knew that although he had the keys and I did not, I had the credit card that would allow him to lift the gate that was keeping his car in the garage. After 10 minutes or so, James returned, and we sat on a bench in Hartsfield Jackson airport until the sun had done its thing on the roads for 30 minutes.

Its thing turned out to be rather insignificant, at least until we got to Newnan (about 25 miles southeast). Or maybe I just revived my ability to drive on roads without visible edges or lane markers. In any event, we made it safely back home, where I left my suitcase in the car and promptly went to bed.

The end.

Next post, which might possibly appear in less than five months, will make good on the other stories I promised back in 2010.