This is the conclusion of my four-part recap of the Helping Hands Foundation’s 2014 Winter Outing. Read about Friday here, Saturday here and Sunday here.
While my travel to the outing was uneventful, my trip home was…kind of a disaster.
Tony, Nikki and I left the hotel a little after 10am and my flight to Philadelphia departed as planned around 130pm. I arrived in Philly, took the shuttle to Terminal F, and waited for my 522pm flight to Milwaukee. We were all sitting there, waiting and watching for our plane to arrive at the gate. 5pm, still no plane. 515pm, no plane. Finally we were told the plane would arrive at 6pm and we’d leave at 645pm. The plane finally arrived at 630pm and we waited for an update. The woman at the gate said something about the pilot needing 15 more minutes to talk to the people in Milwaukee “to make sure it’s safe.” That was the first indication we had that we might not be going home that night.
Finally, the woman came back and I’ll never forget the look of fear on her face. She didn’t even use the PA system, she just blurted out, “It’s cancelled.” Of course a ton of irate people ran at her, like SHE made the decision to cancel it. What did they want her to do? “Oh, I can see you’re all very upset, so, never mind! Let’s board and head to Milwaukee! Hope you don’t die!” Just dumb. So, we all had to stand in line and try to reschedule our flights. Rumors were swirling about why the flight was cancelled and when we’d be able to get out of Philly. I met a few people who I got to help make laugh, so that was nice. I finally got to the counter and was super jokey with the lady, which she seemed to appreciate. The first flight she found me had me getting into Milwaukee at 230am on Tuesday. Yeah…no. I had her look again and she found the LAST flight to Charlotte, NC at 5, connecting me to Milwaukee around 1030. “Sweet, I’ve never been to North Carolina!” I said. She laughed. She printed my tickets and off I went.
