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Destination: Aruba
After two years of pandemic and all that it bought with it, including isolation, extra hours providing nursing care I hadn’t done in a long time, and very little travel, I REALLY needed a vacation. Thanks to American Airlines, it quickly went awry.
Having a vacation on the schedule is what sometimes gets me through the day. As I prepped for this vacation, I planned for a week full of relaxation and rejuvenation. A week of sun, sand, and sea. I reserved a beautiful rental with ocean front views and a topless Jeep for exploring. The camera, lightweight clothing, and snorkel gear were all packed. I was ready to go. The trip to Aruba was going to be amazing. Spoiler alert: I’m still waiting for that trip.
Aruba vacation day 1
It was just after 4:30AM when we were walking out the door. Literally walking out the door. My husband had half of our luggage in the car when I grabbed my purse and looked at my phone. There was an alert from the airline: flight delayed. I opened up my messages and found a second message: flight canceled. Our flights had been rescheduled for the next day before we even knew anything was awry. This felt like a bad joke. Our trip had been delayed for 24hrs.
We mistakenly thought there was something the airline agents could do to get our vacation back on schedule. Since we were already halfway out the door, we made the trip to the airport. The American Airline agents were “sorry, but there is nothing we can do”. We were instructed to return the next morning.
Okay. That’s fine (like a female fine 😉). We were willing to adjust. I notified the room and car rentals. Thankfully, they were very understanding and accommodating. See you tomorrow!
After a few tears and a nap, my sweet husband distracted me with lunch and a movie.
Aruba vacation day 2
The next morning the alarm went off again at 3:30AM. Seriously, why do vacations always start at ungodly hours? My husband bounces up and excitedly exclaims it’s time to go! I’m not so trusting. I grabbed my cellphone. Sure enough, there’s a message from the airline: flights delayed with another cancellation. Our best option (per the airline) was spending the following day bouncing around airports for 21 hours so that we could eventually arrive in Aruba late afternoon on the third day of our vacation. Seriously?! The best they could do was get us to our destination three days late?
Another emotional phone call to the airline agent who again told me they were “sorry, but nothing we can do”. Unfortunately, changing our vacation time wasn’t an option. These 7 days were what we had to work with. The airline asked us to essentially throw away 3 days of our 7-day vacation. The vacation I had worked so hard and waited so long for.
Nope. Not happening!
Since there really wasn’t much we could do, we made the sad decision to cancel the trip. There would be no trip to Aruba. I made more calls to the room and car rentals. Again, they were very understanding. These Arubans seemed very nice. One of these days we will visit Aruba!
Honestly, at 5:00AM on the second day of airline cancellations, I was devastated and could barely process what was happening. I decided there wasn’t much I could do, so I may as well go back to bed and wait for the rest of the world to wake up.
As I lay in bed, I started to process our options. We had luggage loaded for a tropical vacation. Maybe we could book something similar? The Bahamas? Florida? Unfortunately, both of these options would require trusting the airlines again. Nope. How about a road trip? That could work. Where to go?
I’d like to say this was the end of our bad luck. But, nope.
Change in plans. Next stop: Connecticut
After an early morning nap, a new room was booked in Old Saybrook Connecticut. We were once again ready to leave. Just before we walked out the door, my husband said, “you want to hear something funny?” I immediately responded “no. No, I do not.” I could already tell whatever he was going to say was not going to be funny. But he continued.
He told me he investigated a sound in the floorboards. Yeah, I was correct; this wasn’t going to be funny. He followed the sound to the attic in the garage. At the top of the pull-down stairs there was a ferret looking back at him. A ferret?! In our house?!
I was still struggling with the loss of my tropical vacation. A ferret in my garage? I couldn’t deal with it. All I could think was, “we’ll deal with this latest issue later.” That is okay. Right? It couldn’t get from the garage to the house. (Spoiler alert #2, it was not okay).
We decided to deal with it later. The road trip was still on. Just one last thing before we left: switch out the snorkel gear with sweatshirts. I still expected sun, sand, and sea in Connecticut but I doubted it would be warm in early May.
Let the road trip begin! After about 6 hours, we arrived in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The room was beautiful and ocean front. We grabbed dinner and enjoyed the night.
Connecticut vacation day 1
The first morning in Connecticut we were slow to wake up and get moving. I eventually looked at my cellphone. That turned out to be another bad idea. I found a missed call and frantic text messages from the house cleaner. Her message exclaimed, “there is a wild weasel is in the house!” She thought it was upstairs. She was downstairs. Her message said if it came downstairs she was leaving. Yeah, I couldn’t blame her. I was really starting to hate my cellphone. This vacation really wasn’t getting any better.
I returned the call. During our discussion I find out that after cleaning the upstairs she started hearing noises. She decided to go investigate. As she walked into our bedroom, there was a weasel swinging from the curtains. She panicked and tries to trap the animal in the bedroom. Unfortunately, she wasn’t successful. As she headed down the hallway, a small head started poking out from under the bedroom door. Yikes! She headed back downstairs where she thought she would be safe from the wild animal. Unfortunately, in the living room she found the weasel had already been there. Plants and photos were knocked over. The animal had messed on the couch.
Seriously. Who did I tick off?
The housekeep agreed, as long she doesn’t see it again, she’ll finish the house. While she finished, she left the front door open…in case something in the house was desperately trying to get out.
At this point, we’ve had a tropical vacation stolen from us by airline challenges, and we’ve had a wild animal loose in our house. I was back on the phone, this time to my mum. When I don’t know what to do, I call mum. She agreed we didn’t need to come home. She was willing to take a live animal trap over to our house and set it up, just in case. Back to vacation. Technically, the Connecticut coastline does provide sun, sand, and sea. Too bad in early May it is more a look and don’t touch type of situation.
Honestly, if our expectation wasn’t a warm Aruban vacation, Connecticut would have been nice.
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