Too Much Excitement for One Weekend

Good morning and happy Monday from ... Florida, still. We were supposed to go home on Saturday and left my parents' house at about 8:30 to go to the airport, and about nine hours later, we were back here. I'm not sure how much media coverage there was outside of the state, but there were some major issues here on Saturday. I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version of our experience:

• When we got to the airport, our flight was already delayed half an hour (we were supposed to depart at 11 a.m.). The guy who checked our bags curbside said it was due to fog that had delayed earlier flights.
• When we got to our gate, we found two other flights' worth of passengers who were set to go out ahead of us. There was nowhere to sit.
• We finally got on the plane a bit after 12 (they kept pushing the time back), but when we headed out to the runway, there were about 15 planes ahead of us and we were informed there was a ground hold because of a major storm system moving through north of us. Thus we had to just sit there and wait for another update in about 55 minutes.
• The next update was that we were still waiting but had to move up about 100 feet on the tarmac, so the pilot was going to fire up the engines (we'd been on auxiliary power to save fuel). The next thing we knew, the plane went silent and the emergency lights came on. Yep, we were dead on the tarmac and stayed that way for about an hour. It was about 90 degrees F outside at that point. The plane was completely full, and pretty much everyone but us decided they were too hot to wear masks anymore
  
• The next step was to get the plan back to the terminal, but we needed a tug to do that, and the truck with the tug couldn't get to us without other planes moving out of the way. And then we had to wait for a plane to be moved back from a gate so we could get into its spot.
• When we finally got off the plane, we were greeted by all sorts of emergency response personnel and cold bottles of water. We were back at the same gate, and there was still nowhere to sit, so we had to plop on the floor and wait for them to tell us what was next. Eventually they told us there was good news -- they had a plane and a crew for us, and we'd be departing at 5! We just had to go to a different gate.
• We had about 20 minutes before we'd board at the new gate, so Rainbow and I left my mom there with our bags and went to the bathroom one last time. And when we got back, they had canceled the flight.
  

The good news (because there is good news!) is that my dad was planning to be here for another week after we left, and while we were sitting on the dead plane and everyone was looking at their phones to try to see if they could find another flight out, he was on the computer and managed to book us a direct flight home tomorrow. As soon as we knew the flight was canceled, my mom called him and he jumped in the car to come pick us up. So it was a long and stressful day for us, but at least we have a place to stay. Many of the people on the plane had left hotels or rentals and were scrambling to find somewhere to stay until they could get another flight or a rental car to drive home or to other airport. Being here another few days certainly isn't ideal (particularly for Rainbow, who is missing two days of school), but I can still work remotely -- and there are worse places to be stuck! And instead of spending my Sunday cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry, I got to sleep in, have a nice breakfast, and work on my sweater:

I am on my second set-up round for the tubular bind-off on the body, which means that it will be completed today. I will likely then put it away because to figure out the sleeves (which I am again doing my own way, rather than following the pattern) I need to measure another sweater that's at home. So perhaps I'll start that handspun Hitchhiker after all!

I also want to share my sock progress, because Rainbow's second sock was my travel knitting. You can tell just how stressed out (and hot!) I was on Saturday because the sparkly progress keeper shows where I was when we started the day and this is all the progress I made, most of it in the car or sitting in the airport:

Today is a work day, though I'm hoping it's an easy one, and tomorrow we'll try to get home again. Please keep your fingers crossed we make it this time!