Christmas travel

 We left Monday morning to visit our son and his family in Austin, Texas. As always, we had a great time. While having a wonderful lunch of barbequed brisket, as you can only get in Texas, I got a notice that our flight for Thursday morning had been canceled. With the weather storm approaching I wasn't entirely surprised but was hopeful that the timing of our flights would keep us ahead of the storms. My son helped me schedule another flight for Friday morning, but he was certain that flight would also be canceled. He began to search for another flight on a different airline.

We found American Airlines had flights that would return us to Louisville, KY where our car was parked at the airport so we quickly booked it. We had little time to rush to the airport to catch the plane but managed to make it. Unfortunately, although we had booked seats together, when we printed our boarding passes my wife and I were on opposite ends of the plane. We flew into Charlotte and had about 10 minutes before our next plane began boarding. Although it was only a 50 minute flight from Charlotte to Louisville, there as a medical emergency on the plane. Fortunately, there were medical people traveling and they were able to attend to the emergency. We finally made it home about 2:00 AM.

Obviously, the back-up flight I had booked would have been canceled, and we likely would have been stuck in Austin until probably Monday at least before we could have found a flight out. Or, as we are now seeing on the news, it might have been much later. Our original flight was on Southwest, and we now know they are having serious problems. As much as we disliked missing out on one more evening with our son we made the smart move to catch a flight out ahead of the storm. Thousands of people are now stranded in airports and unlikely to be home for Christmas.

Southwest has given us refunds for the canceled flight and the one we canceled. Our next two trips to Austin are now paid for. American Airlines was wonderful in accommodating us and the other passengers on the flights we took with them. I know airlines get a lot of criticism, but I have to congratulate them based on our experience this week.

My wife and I were home for Christmas. Due to the road conditions our daughter and her family were not able to be here for Christmas, but everyone is safe. We want to thank God for providing us with a flight out ahead of the winter storm, and we want to pray for those who are stuck in airports and bus terminals unable to get home. We ask that you pray as well for those who need shelter in this horrific winter storm.