We planned to start our trip a week early to allow
time to visit Jesse’s brother Jon and his family in Claremont, CA, and Jesse’s
kids in the Phoenix, AZ, area. Our
flight to Los Angeles was scheduled to depart Moline, IL, at 9:10 AM, Wednesday,
23 Jan 2019. Although we had set our
alarm for 4:30 AM, we were awakened by a 5:20 AM phone call from our friend,
Katie, who was planning to pick us up at 5:30 AM. Katie had spent 30 minutes digging her car
out of the snow and was checking to make sure our flight was still on
schedule. Upon checking, we learned
that our flight was delayed by an hour.
Jesse spent the next 30 minutes clearing 6.5 inches of snow from our
driveway for Katie to pick us up. During
that time, we learned that the snow had fallen on top of ice from sleet that
had fallen beforehand; everything was closed down, and people were warned to
stay off the streets because there would be no towing!
At any rate, we made it to the airport by 6:30 AM,
and were told that the plane for our flight would be arriving from St. Louis,
MO. However, after waiting 4 hours, the
airline announced that our flight had been cancelled. (In fact, no planes were taking off, and our
plane from St. Louis, MO, never arrived!)
Our original flight had us changing planes in Denver, CO; however, we
were rebooked on a flight to Chicago, departing Moline, IL on Thursday at 5:40
PM. After hearing the ridiculous rates
that taxis were charging due to the slippery roads, we decided to rent a car
for our trip home and back to the airport the next day.
Thursday, 24
Jan 2019 –
We arrived back at the airport by 3:00 PM.
However, our departure was delayed by an hour. Since we would probably miss our connection
in Chicago, the flight personnel gave us the option of rescheduling a flight
out of Moline to Friday morning or probably staying overnight in Chicago;
however, we opted to take our chances on the flight to Chicago and at least get
out of Moline! Before taking off from
Moline, we watched as the wings were de-iced and watched the blizzard-like wind
swirling snow across the runway. Needless
to say, we missed our connection in Chicago and (after standing in line) were
rebooked on a flight leaving Chicago at 7:15 AM on Friday. It was near-zero degrees Fahrenheit there as
we hurried to board the motel shuttle.
Friday, 25
Jan 2019 – After
spending the night at a motel in Chicago, we arrived back at the airport at
about 5:30 AM. Sadly to say, our
departure was delayed even then by 1.5 hours due to a frozen fuel truck. Apparently, the brakes were frozen, which did
not allow the pumps to work. We were
told that this is a frequent problem in extremely low temperatures.
Upon arrival at the Los Angeles airport (finally!),
we boarded an Enterprise shuttle. After waiting
in line for about an hour, we learned that we were at the wrong Enterprise
location! We tried changing our
reservation but there were no rental cars available at that location. So, we took a taxi to the correct Enterprise
location in El Segundo, CA. We liked our
taxi driver; he gave us a card with his mobile phone number to call later for a
ride from Enterprise to the cruise terminal.
His name is Karim and he is from Algeria. We departed for Phoenix with our rental car at
2:30 PM, just in time for Los Angeles Friday rush hour traffic! At one point, it took us 30 minutes to travel
3 miles on the interstate! We only made
it to Indio, CA, before we stopped at a motel for the night.
 |
| "Twins" Arrival at Daughter, Verna's House |
Saturday, 26
Jan 2019 – Tuesday, 29 Jan 2019 – We arrived at Jesse’s daughter, Verna’s house at
1:30 PM on Saturday. It was only then that
we realized we had been traveling dressed almost like twins! We spent the weekend visiting Jesse’s kids
and their families; then drove to Claremont on Monday, and spent Monday night
and Tuesday with Jesse’s brother, Jon, and his family. Our original week’s visit in CA and AZ was
crammed into four days.
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