All week long I had been following the news about a winter storm that would affect the Midwest and the East Coast this weekend. Southwest had put out an alert for passengers flying out of certain cities to let them know that they could change their flights for free in anticipation of delays or cancellations yesterday and today. Neither Chicago nor Orlando were on that list, so I was hopeful that we would be able to get out on time today. I woke up early this morning and was glad to see that our flight had only been delayed fifteen minutes. I called Meg to wake her up and jumped in the shower. I checked again once I was done and was completely surprised to see that our flight was now delayed three hours and fifty minutes. I called Doug right away to see what we should do.
Meg went back to sleep once she heard the news and I spent the next half hour checking different flights, airports and times. After a lot of research we decided that the best option was to keep our booked reservation. Our plane had flown from Indy to Sarasota already and was scheduled to land in Midway at 11 a.m. The hope was that it would be able to get out at some point this afternoon. While I was working on that, Doug called to tell me that the storms in Ocala were incredibly intense. We later found out that a tornado had touched down that morning while he was talking to me. The damage was extensive and we were both glad that it missed where he was at when he called.
Southwest ended up texting us to let us know that our flight would actually depart at 1:50 p.m. Chicago time. I was worried that it would return to our original noon departure, so Meg called Nick to let him know that we would need to leave by 9:30 this morning. He was riding along to drive Meg's CR-V back to Indiana for us. The trip to Midway was cold, but overall an easy one. Meg and I couldn't believe all of the passengers in line at Midway's Southwest counter because of flight cancellations. We were thankful that ours was not one of those. We checked in and got through security quickly. We had a couple of hours to wait, but didn't mind as that gave us time for lunch. We picked Vienna's Beef for our meal. Meg hadn't had a hot dog in over six years and said it was better than she remembered.
The wait went by faster than we thought it would and soon we were called to line up for boarding. We had B boarding passes, so we would be in the second group to get on the plane. All was going well until the Southwest employee let us know that he had to leave and park an international plane that was waiting at customs. He said that it would only be a few minutes and another person would arrive to help us board our flight. Those few minutes turned into 45. I was frustrated as we didn't receive a lot of information during that time period. IU lost a close game to Iowa in the Big Ten Tourney during that time period which didn't help matters much.
Thankfully, we did make it on the plane and even got seats across the aisle from one another. The flight was fairly smooth. Meg and I each spent time texting and watching shows on our phones. We landed just as Doug arrived at the Orlando airport. Unfortunately, the pilot came on the intercom to let us know that our plane was being held outside the gate so that another one could load. He said that it would be ten minutes, but neither Meg nor I believed him. We were right as it took another hour to get off of the plane. It was really annoying, but once we saw the large crowds at the airport due to delays because of the storms, we were just happy to have made it.
We celebrated making it to Florida by spending the evening at Disney Springs. We ate dinner at Splitsville, went shopping at the M&M store and the World of Disney, tried different drinks at the Coca Cola Store and bought cookies at Gideon's Bakehouse. It was a fun way to end a very long day of traveling.
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