Lots going on!
Let's first start with the trip down there. A wise man once said, the difference between ordeal and adventure is attitude. And we got to prove that in spades.
One hour out of KC some alarms go off. Very unpleasant. They are designed to get your attention and they do quite the spiffy job of doing it. We are still 1.5 hours from our touch down in Tampa.
What is going on. So, soon the flight attendants come on and say BOTH lav smoke detectors are going off. Groovy.
However, since we can't smell smoke, the plane still seems to be maintaining a nice 35,000 foot altitude, they are going to keep going to Tampa.
Fifteen minutes later..."This is your captain speaking, we are going to divert to Birmingham". Once again, groovy.
That's when suddenly a plane gets vewwwy, vewwwy qwiet, as Elmer Fudd would say. Tim decides that this is the time his imagination is going to get the best of him and keeps saying, do you smell something? Do you smell something?
Keep it down honey, the passengers are getting nervous.
Of course, I
can't smell anything because I still had lingering sinus problems from my cold and I was more concerned with the sudden drop in altitude to get to Birmingham, and the fact my sinus were trying to push themselves out of my skull via my molars and eyeballs. (Take note, kiddies, flying with sinus problems is not fun)
So, after what seemed to be the world's longest circular approach (that's to get the FIRE TRUCKS ready), we land to a welcoming committee that your average airline passenger doesn't want to see--The Birmingham Airport Fire Department.
So, we get to a safe area so that the fire department can look for signs of flame or smoke outside the airplane. Nice, but I'M IN THE AIRPLANE--thinking jet fuel, oxygen, fire/jet fuel, oxygen, fire.
We get the all clear to go to the gate. We are told to sit tight while the fire department checks the lavs. The firemen now board the plane in full SCBA and fire gear. At this point, I'm punchy and say to Tim, what the hell, if HE'S not getting on the plane without full gear, where's MINE. So, that gets us entirely in hysterics. Of course, every passenger has their iPhones/cameras/whatnot in full documentary mode.
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| Not the escort you want when landing. |
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| I want my fashionable, shiny, keep me from becoming a charcoal briquette suit!!! |
All was cleared, but the plane now had to non-working smoke detectors, so we had to disembark and wait for a new plane to arrive. Southwest did a good job and got one there in an hour, however, now our flight from Tampa to Key West (which was supposed to be the same plane we were on) was cancelled because they had to get another plane diverted for the Tampa passengers. So, at this moment we know we are going to get as far as Tampa, and then we'd find out our fate there.
Off to Tampa we go, I'm now fortified with some decongestants for the next landing, and really, really not wanting to be on a plane anymore. At Tampa, they tell us we can a)fly to Ft. Lauderdale and drive down (that would put us in Key West about 9:30pm-ish b)they'll fly us to New Orleans, we can spend the rest of day and evening their and they'd fly us to Key West Saturday morning--not an option since we have our boat survey scheduled. or c)we can start hoofing it down from Tampa via car.
We did the math and decided c) was probably the best choice for us...ha ha ha. Tim makes some changes to the car reservation. (Join the loyalty clubs, people, they are very patient with your nonsense). They pull our luggage from the New Orleans flight and we set out on our merry way.
Until we started hitting massive rain storms. At which point, driving is no longer going to be fun and we are not going to get into Key West until late at the rate we are going (no visibility to drive was awful).
Okay, on to plan D. Tim was seriously considering finding the nearest airport and seeing if some General Aviation pilot had a plane to fly us (yeah, because we want to do that in rain storms). The high speed ferry from Fort Meyers to Key West only leaves in the morning, so that wouldn't work.
Cape Air Airlines. BINGO. Sure enough they had availability left. a 6pm flight, plenty of time for us to get down to Ft. Meyers, we were about 45 minutes away, chill out and get on a flight. They were amazingly cheap also considering we book two hours before the flight. So once again, Tim calls the car rental company to rearrange the cars (I'm sure they were thinking, seriously?)
So, pretty much after starting at 7am in Kansas City. We arrived in Key West only 6 hours late, still way before driving or flying to Ft. Laud would have done for us. And we got to fly on this cool, albeit uncomfortable, little Cessna 420 with wonder boy Yoshii the pilot.
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| The other side had pirates. This side was Captain Tony. |
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| Tim got to fly co-pilot. God help us all. |
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| We ARRIVED in Key West finally!! |
