Our cousin Leah did a great job rallying the troops to celebrate the octogenarians in our family. We were originally scheduled for October, but it got pushed out to June. I hadn't been to Ohio since my Uncle Jerry's funeral, back in 2013, so I hadn't seen most of my Ohio family in 10 years, and some even longer. Unfortunately, Aunt Winnie couldn't hold out that long, so the party became a reunion/memorial. And of course, it never occurred to us that we would lose Nanci so soon. Our cousin's wife Mandi had died as well, and Cousin Gary. But the thing about Kepplers is, when we're together, no matter the occasion, we tend to make it fun, and this one was especially awesome.
We met via zoom in the months leading up to the event. Given the length of our flight, and that I wanted to bring my boys, I opted to turn the weekend into a longer event for my family. Looking at a map of Ohio and things to do in Ohio, and given how much we loved our trip to Niagara Falls and our trip to Kings Dominion, I decided to take the boys to see Lake Erie, some lighthouses, and then hit up Cedar Point, the roller coaster capital of the world.
We hit a snag on our first flight, after landing - we couldn't get into our gate. We were supposed to dock at C-8, which was perfect, considering the app was showing that our next flight was at C-7. After waiting about 30 minutes, the pilot announced that we were pulling into C-25 instead. I could see our flight was already boarding. But I really thought they would hold our flight! Lots of folks on our flight were worried about connections.
We raced back to C-7, though I was pretty sure our flight had been closed. Tyrien had a meltdown along the way, frustrated at trying to keep up while wearing a tight fitting mask. He ripped it off his face in protest, crying, but moving faster. We finally arrived at our gate, and sure enough, the door was closed. The boys sat down together while I waited my turn to speak to the agent. She initially said I needed to go back to C-25 to make arrangements, but then began helping me. She worked to get us three seats together on the next available flight - not til 7:20am the next day! I said, "What do we do, sleep here in the airport?" "Let's get your flight booked first, we'll deal with that next." Next she gave me three meal vouchers, each worth $12. Then she directed the younger agent next to her to get me a hotel. She griped about the distance of the hotel, and asked if they had a 24 hour shuttle. He said "That's what their website says." She instructed him to call and verify. He reported back that their first shuttle of the day would be at 6am. She indicated that wasn't early enough. She gave me vouchers for cab rides, and told me to take a photo of the cab number, make arrangements with the driver to pick me up in the morning, and told me to be back in the airport by 5:20am. "If you don't get here early enough, they'll give away your seats and you won't be able to sit together." I asked about our luggage. "Your LUGGAGE? I don't know where that is. It will take 2-3 hours to find it. Just go to your hotel. You'll meet up with your luggage in Cleveland. You can track it on the app." She'd probably had a long day. She'd mentioned at one point that they were adding 500 flights for the following day. 500??? She didn't know what was causing the delay. She made it clear she could complaint about it, but wasn't going to listen to any complaining from me. Somehow, her brusque demeanor wasn't offensive. Just matter of fact, get it done. She was definitely concerned about keeping Tyrien and me together, and Tyler close by.
I approached the boys and framed this turn of events as "an adventure." Tyler expressed upset that we wouldn't get to go to Cedar Point for the full day. I assured him we would find a way to work things out. Now we needed to get to our hotel. We walked quite a ways through the parking garage, only to learn we were on the wrong floor for taxis. We went to the correct floor, walked a long ways back, then waited for probably 45 minutes for a ride. I called our hotel in Cleveland, and was informed it was too late to cancel our reservation, we still had to pay. I called Enterprise, with better luck - no reduction in fee, but our car would still be waiting for us upon our arrival the next day. We met up with a fellow traveler, also with vouchers, who advised me to take out my contacts and put them in cups of bottled water overnight. I thought about that but decided not to risk it - with no glasses, I would be completely vulnerable if I couldn't get my lenses back in my eyes the next morning. Better to wear these contacts overnight and dump them once we were reunited with our luggage the next day.
I made arrangements with the cab driver for our return ride. He was hesitant at first - it was so late at night and here I was asking him for a return ride at 4:45 the next morning. "Ok, but you have to wait for me. Don't just leave. The hotel guys - they're going to try to get you to give them your voucher. If you give them your voucher, you have to go with them, you can't come with me. Don't let them take your voucher." His intensity was concerning. Upon arrival at the hotel, though, the two men checking us in had an intensity that was even more concerning! "You have a cab voucher for the morning, yes? Give it to me." We went back and forth for a few minutes, with me then saying "do you need the info off the voucher? I can read it to you." Finally he said, "you don't have to give me the voucher tonight. You can give it in the morning. We leave at 5:30." "I need to leave by 5." "Ok, 5, then. Be in the lobby by 4:50."
We got up to our room, and I quickly found the menus. The hotel specified only two restaurants would be allowed to deliver. They were closing in exactly two minutes. I made the call, ordered pizza and wings, and hung up, skeptical that our food would arrive. While waiting, I called Tyson and fretted over the cab versus the hotel shuttle. Tyson's advice "I'd say go with whoever is more likely to actually get you there on time."
Amazingly, the food did arrive! The driver gave us exactly one paper plate. I had the boys eat directly over the pizza while I used the single paper plate to eat the wings.
My spirit lifted while eating, grateful to not have to force feed my kids peppered beef jerky - they don't enjoy jerky anyway, let alone peppered, and it didn't look like there were any other sources of food nearby. Tyrien seemed pretty happy, content with this new adventure. Tyler...not so much.
Lights out at 11:30, alarm set for me for 4:30, and I tossed and turned all night, fretting about how best to get back to the airport, and whether to call the cab company and ask them to find that driver and cancel the ride so I wouldn't feel guilty for him waking up so early if I was just going to ride with the shuttle. On the other hand, those hotel guys seemed so sketchy...I vowed to go downstairs well before 4:50 to check things out. I got out of bed at 4:15, realizing I actually had nothing to do - no toothbrush, no change of clothes...I ate a piece of pizza, then woke the boys at 4:30.
