Planes, Buses, and Aircraft Carriers

My oldest son serves as an officer in the Navy.  He called one day to let us know that there would be a “family cruise” coming up, where those of us who were NOT in the Navy could visit his ship for a day-cruise to better understand our family member’s life at sea.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to play Navy mariner for a day, Son Number Two and I began planning a father-son trip to visit Son Number One.

 Call me unrealistic, but I thought it might be possible to schedule this in such a way that I could make the trip but only miss one day of work.  We can do it all, right?  We planned our flight to arrive in Norfolk about 10:40 p.m.  We needed to meet the landing craft at 7 a.m. sharp the next morning if we were going to get our chance to ride on the ship.  It seemed simple enough.

Our flight to Norfolk ran a bit behind schedule.  On our final approach into Norfolk at 11 p.m. the aircraft suddenly shifted direction.  The pilot announced that the Norfolk airport had just CLOSED for the night (what?) and that we were being diverted to Richmond Virginia, about 95 miles the wrong direction from where we needed to be.  Son Number Two asks, “So now how are we going to get to Norfolk?”

Since we were the last (unscheduled) flight of the night to arrive in Richmond all the airline staff had already left for the night.  Since we couldn’t run the jet-bridge we had to exit the plane by the emergency exit (woo-hoo!)  With no one left in the terminal, we appealed to a janitor to help us make some calls.  Eventually a charter bus and very tired driver (don’t ask about D.O.T. regulations) arrived to take ONLY HALF of us to Norfolk.   We pushed our way through the crowd of sleepy travelers like women at a half-price shoe sale and were one of the lucky ones to get a seat on the bus.  Estimated time of arrival at Norfolk airport was 4 a.m.  Or so we thought.

About 3 a.m. Son Number Two nudged me and said, “It smells like something is burning.”  In fact, the something was the back of the bus.  We woke the driver and when he came to he ordered an emergency evacuation to the cold shoulder of the interstate highway.  There we stood, shivering, tired and smoky, happy to be alive, but wondering how we would finish our journey to the Norfolk airport to get our rental car and meet the landing craft by 7 a.m.

As I attempted, through chattering teeth, to describe our location to the local taxi company (“a gr-gr-grassy shoulder somewhere in V-V-Virginia”) Son Number Two decided that hitchhiking was a better solution.  By some miracle he was able to flag down a passing car on its way to the airport with one empty seat.  They seemed disappointed to realize that there were really TWO hitchhikers, but after hearing our sad story they somehow agreed to let us both squeeze in and share the final drive to Norfolk airport. 

Once we arrived at the airport we found the rental car counter closed for the night, not scheduled for opening until 6:30 a.m. (did I mention we had to meet the landing craft at 7 a.m.?)  Son and I took turns standing watch at the counter while the other dozed.  Fortunately a dedicated employee arrived a little early, and we snagged a car, initialed all 75 required boxes on the car-rental form, declined coverage for uninsured motorist, hail, hurricane, flood, earthquake, bus-fire and bubonic-plague, screamed across town, slid through a MacDonald’s drive-through on two wheels, quaffed coffee and McBiscuits as we cleared the security post and – did you ever doubt it – easily made the 7 o’clock appointment with the landing craft.

Super-Dad and Son Number Two made it, together, no sweat.  We had a great cruise with Son Number One, and created a great story to tell together.

We can do it all, right? 

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