Adventures begin before you even leave home!

Big storms, tornado warnings, no power and running late for my flight.. had about an hours worth of sleep and lucky I woke up at all since the power was out.

I missed my 6:30am flight to Miami, so was put on stand-by for the 7:30 flight. Got to Atlanta without a problem.. getting into Miami was another story. Heavy storms and the airport was closed..had to circle for an hour and when we finally tried to land we did it by accidently, sort of dropping several thousand feed.. which felt like a rollercoaster.. and then going to through some rain that I thought was going to tear the plane apart. People were shook up, kids screaming and I was just sitting there asking Kerrie to hold my hand.. I think she was.

Sitting in the airport and I keep looking at this man getting ready to board the same plane. I swear I know him.. but what are the odds of someone I know getting on the same plane to Ecuador? Unless they were part of this recruiting trip.. pretty slim. Plus, I haven’t seen this guy for about 10 years.. so it probably just “looks” like him.

A long flight is delayed an hour, because we are waiting for people from a flight coming in from Paris. Then we are waiting for their luggage. We decide to wait AFTER everyone is on the plane of course. I’m getting impatient, but then I remember another flight that had to wait for me once.. and my luggage.. so I chill out.

Seems like the flight is forever.. and then the pilot comes on and says we have been circling for about 40 minutes. The Quito airport is closed due to the heavy fog. We can circle another 45 minutes, but then we will need to go to another city to get gas “or we could just hang out and make an emergency landing with no gas and no visibility”. I think he thought he was funny.. I.. did.. not..

Had images of that soccor team that crashed in the Andes… back in the 70’s? There were three other flights circling, that had priority over us.. but we managed to be able to land in the right city. Again a bumpy landing.. but not as bad as Miami. The plane “in line” behind us had to divert to another city. That plane happened to have my friends, from two of our other parks, on it and was the flight I was originially supposed to be on.. but got moved when I missed my first flight.

In line, for passport control, and there’s that guy again.. I swear I know him but the odds are just too “out there”.  The employers on the other flight are stranded in another city and will be flown in later or the next day ( Today).

I get to the hotel and that guy is sitting in the lobby. This is too much, so I walk up to him and say, “Allen?”  It turns out it IS him. He knows another employer on this job fair and is meeting them there to hang out in Ecuador. That employer turns out to be someone from Six Flags, who I have recruited with several times.. small world.

The people who actually made it to Quito hung out in the lounge until 3:00am.. so I have now had 3 hours of sleep to add to the hour I had the night before.. and am getting ready for my trip out into the jungle. My friends from the other parks are coming in, on an 8 hour bus ride, today.. almost wish I had been on that original plane. It would have been great to get an 8 hour ride accross the country and be able to see more.

Mom, don’t worry.. I won’t fall asleep out in the jungle 🙂