From This to That!

This was the beginning of my latest trip! The day I have to leave is the day that winter arrives in Cleveland! I get to the airport plenty early - several hours in fact! Check my bags through and breeze through security! Wet socks and all!

As the morning progresses, the snow gets worse, and worse, and worse! Suddenly you can't see across the tarmac to the other terminal wing!

Now what begins to worry me is when the ground crew starts shoveling the tarmac! I mean after all, this is Cleveland! This is not the first time that it has snowed in this century. Plows have been around for a very long time! I can remember going door to door as a kid offering to shovel walks and driveways for a $1.00. I wonder what these guys were getting!

Whatever it was, his buddies wanted a part of it too! This much snow, this quick, this was not going to go well! My flight to Detroit was over an hour late. As a matter of fact, for a while, they couldn't tell us where the flight was, on its way then turned back! These guys were out trying to shovel a path for us to walk on from the jetway stairs to where the plane would land...think commuter flight - no jetway!

When the third guy started shoveling out in the tarmac trying to find the yellow lines to guide the plane to the gate, this was going to be a LONG day! Finally they found our plane, brought it back just as a break in the snow came through, hustled us on and out and off before the next flurry shut operations down again. Well, there went my connection time in Detroit. As we landed on the commuter concourse and had to go underground acid tunnel to the "A" terminal, there were 8 of us that hustled to make the Taipei flight connection. As we got to our gate, the jetway was pulled back and the plane doors were closed! OHHHHHH NOOOOOOO! You knew they were not going to let us on! The gate agents told us to go to the gate for the flight to Tokyo! They were going to put us on that flight and during the next 13 hours, they would make arrangements for us to connect to Taipei.

We did manage to get seats on a very full plane to Tokyo. NWA did have a gate agent meet us when we landed who was such a great help that I wrote to NWA to comment on his actions in helping us. I hope he gets an "Attaboy!" Our agent took us to the NWA service counter and helped us all make int'l calls to Taipei to let our ground transportation arrangements know that there was a "Change of plans!" Which meant a different flight at a different terminal 2 hours later than we were supposed to land!

As you can well imagine, my luggage didn't make one of the transfers! What a lot of paperwork that created in Taipei! (Think Customs!) And i'm staying 2 hours south of Taipei! Now, i can buy any "personal hygiene items that i might need, but not skivvies! I've been to the night market, and believe me, they don't have clothing in my size! I figured i had 5 days, front, back, inside out and no underwear! But my luggage showed up Monday night, 2 days later!

In the morning when i went for a walk in my shirtsleeves, there it was! January in Taiwan and everything is in bloom, even the Portulaca!