Thrown for a Loop

We left our home at 4:30P to head to the hotel where we are parking our car during our vacation.  We were shuttled to the airport about 6 and our flight was to leave at 8:06.  We had a very small window, about 25 minutes, for our connecting flight from Houston to San Juan.  We were able to get our seat assignments moved up 17 rows in order to get off quicker, so that we could hot foot it over to the boarding plane. 

 

Then, our departure time was changed, slightly, to 8:18.  We were on one of the last "blocks" and while waiting for our number to be called for boarding, we were informed that NO PILOTS were on the plane and none would arrive for over 2 hours!!!!  This flight would now leave at 10:45. 

 

Our connecting flight was leaving at 11:55. 

 

There was absolutely no way we were making it to San Juan by 5:30A!!!

 

We had to wait in line at United customer service to see what flight we could be rerouted on.

 

We ended up with a new flight, connecting through Newark....on a redeye!!! 

 

Then, we discover that Chris was given Standby!!  The Newark flight was overbooked!  We had to sit and wait until everyone had boarded to see if Chris was going to get a seat.  I wanted to vomit!  I wanted to scream!  I wanted to cry!!

 

After the scrambling we had to do ~even debating if we should just scrap it all~ here we were in the most tenuous of positions.

 

Fortunately, a seat was found and we took off!

 

We are remaining positive that our checked bag made it to this flight and off the Houston leg!

 

We decided to cancel the one-way rental car, and found some great online reviews about a guy, "Enri", to drive our tired asses to the Fajardo ferry terminal.  Not having any real inkling of the route from the airport to the car rental office in Fajardo was a bit off-putting already...trying to do it utterly without sleep, is more than daunting.

 

We should be arriving for sunrise in San Juan, Puerto Rico, any minute.  Rather, we are sitting in the Newark airport.  Our connecting flight doesn't leave until 9, leaving us over 3 hours to kill here. 

 

We are exhausted with no where to lay our weary heads and we are arriving in San Juan at midday,  catching the ferry almost 3 hours later than we had wanted.

 

I guess this is a lesson to teach us the patience we might need once we begin foreign travel.  I suppose I have handled it better than I would have a handful of years ago. 

 

Looking on the bright side....we are heading to Puerto Rico!  We have beaches on our horizon!  We are going to sleep under the sun on the sand, lulled by the sound of the waves.  We get to kayak for the first time together, at nite, under an almost new moon, with the bioluminescent dinoflaggelates illuminating our path.

 

Life is (still) good!