BOOTS ON THE GROUND... for a short while at least.

Gabe finally made it home Tuesday evening.  Bad weather kept him grounded in various airports around the globe.  Because he was pretty much flying 'space available' we didn't have a flight number to track.  We had an approximate time but no other information besides an area code from the phone he called from once he landed in country.  Dallas, Texas.

That was where the fun began.  I pulled up the Springs Airport and found that the only airlines flying in from Dallas/ Fort Worth was American Airlines.  There were three flights.  One was due in at 5:15 after being rescheduled from 2.  Another, the one I suspected he would be on, was rescheduled from 4:25 to 7:33 pm.  The 7:15 flight was canceled.

I called American Airlines and got a recording.  After fighting with the millions of options I hung up in disgust.  Plan B, call the Springs Airport. 

Another recording.  This one gave me the address to the web site I had found the phone number on.  It gave me the phone number I had just dialed, and it gave the phone numbers to all of the airlines robotic answering machines.   It also gave me a warning that "ticketing fees may apply",  but good news, I can "pay by Western Union!"

I decided to try the American Airlines recording again.  After finally getting an option to wait for an agent I was warned that the wait may take up to 5 minutes.  15 minutes later I was greeted by a live voice.

'Are you human?  Because I don't want to talk to another machine.'    The voice on the other end laughed and assured me that she was in fact a human.  And this human spent the next 20 minutes trying to track down my son.  In the end she was unsuccessful but she tried and that meant the world to me.  When I finally hung up I was no better off than when I first began my little trip through the automated phone system but I had spoken to a compassionate human who ended the call with 'Enjoy your son's visit'. 

Two minutes later Kimmie called to say that Gabe was waiting at the airport. 

We had a nice family reunion over Philly Cheese steak pizza from Dominos.  I stood off to the side watching all of my children, my husband, my grandchildren and extended family members talking, laughing and acting like they had never been apart.  What loud, beautiful noise.

I have waited for what seemed like ages for this moment and now that it is here it is moving way too fast.  Suddenly 2 weeks doesn't seem like very much time at all.