We’re Back!
When I opened the motel door this morning I figured we would be spending a lot more time in Cape Cod than anticipated. We couldn’t walk out the door. Snow was up past the car’s bumper. There was no snow plow. I almost rolled over and went back to sleep since it all seemed so very white and impossible.
I started calling the airport immediately and they had no idea why I was asking about flight delays. Everything was running smoothly in that crazy state of Rhode Island.
Things were not running smoothly at the wonderful Town Crier Motel. In fact, things were not running at all. We called and called and called again, but there was no one at the front desk and no one answered the “emergency” phone number. We figured that they couldn’t keep us stranded for too long since we were at a MOTEL and had no FOOD. Ok, so we did have some food, but they didn’t know that. We could have starved to death.
Finally we decided (we being Mikey, myself and our friend Lee Ann) to start scraping the car off in hopes we’d have it ready and raring to go when the plows finally came through.
At some point I called Independence Air and found out that we could make another flight, but it would cost an arm and a leg if we did it over the phone, but if we arrived at the airport it would be free. The customer support lady in India didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “snowed in.”
Honestly, I’ve never seen a storm hit so fast. It was really quite amazing, even if it did stress us out.
Also, at some point Lee Ann and Mike both got through to the front desk and both were given unsatisfactory answers about what the heck we were supposed to do. Here’s an approximation of Lee Ann’s conversation.
Lee Ann: We’re snowed in. When are the plows coming?
Clueless Old Man: I called the plows. They’re busy.
LA: What are we supposed to do?
COM: I don’t know.
LA: We have no food. What are we supposed to eat?
COM: I was kinda wondering that myself.
LA: So is there a plan?
COM: I don’t know.
And so on and so forth. This old man needed a major smack. The night we checked in he had us listed as three nights instead of four and we told him and told him that we needed it for four nights and he just completely ignored us. We had to go in later when he wasn’t working to pay for the fourth night. We hate the Clueless Old Man.
We got ahold of Lee Ann’s family and her younger brother agreed to be our knight in shining Taurus. He dug his car out, which took a good hour, then came on down to the motel. Of course, he couldn’t pull in since the road snow plows had made a big snow drift in front of the drive ways and the snow was hip deep anyway, so we had to hustle our butts out there with our luggage in town. Lee Ann blazed a trail while I carried the front of our big bag and Mike carried the back of it. Then we had to stand in snow up to our asses and wait for him to pick us up. We scurried across the most dangerous stretch of highway on the East Coast (so I’ve heard) with our luggage and jumped into the car. Later we heard that Lee Ann’s dad had called the Crier to find out what was going on with us. The Clueless Old Man informed him that he’d seen three people running through the snow then jump into a white car. I can only imagine what our trek looked like. It was insane and I was so wishing we had a movie camera. It was utterly ridiculous. When I say we were up to our asses in snow I mean that completely literally. I was just wearing my stupid tennis shoes so when we finally got home this evening my poor feetsies were shrivelled up.
The drive over to the airport really wasn’t all that bad after we got off the Cape. I am so sorry we had to make someone take that trip for us, but I guess that’s just how life works.
Of course, our flight was delayed even though they kept telling us it was on time. Even once we were at the gate and the plane was clearly delayed the sign still said “on time” and no one explained the problem until the pilot came on board. He had been out helping the baggage handlers, since that was the problem. Can you even imagine?
Other than the little problem of 18 inches of snow, we had a really wonderful Christmas. Lee Ann’s family is so warm and welcoming that it almost makes me sad that I never had such a family. They are all rather weird, as you’d expect from Lee Ann but I’ll go into that in another post. I am totally ready for bed right now. The Dramamine always puts me to sleep.
I hope you all had a great Christmas!