I think my vacation luck ran out last night.
I was supposed to land at 9:25pm; my friend Jeep was going to pick me up at the airport. I called him from Phoenix to tell him they couldn't find our crew and our flight was therefore delayed, looked to be about an hour. We chatted up to the point when I was sitting in my seat, on the plane, Santa Barbara bound. "See you in a couple hours!"
FOUR HOURS LATER, the plane was STILL circling Santa Barbara. Something about heavy fog and runway construction. We attempted to land a handful of times, resulting in jerky airline movements and free falling stomach moments. I prayed. Lots. We would loop out over the ocean, giving the aircraft a chance to dust itself off and prepare to try again. And we weren't in one of those sturdy jet airliners, oh no. We were in something akin to a propeller plane, with virtually zero overhead compartment room, two seats across. I was mentally going over my checklist of family members in my head: had everyone gotten a recent "I love you?"
Finally--FINALLY--the pilot decided to let us in on the plan, and announced we were going to be landing in Bakersfield. Which is roughly 150 miles away. Over the mountains. The flight attendant then announced she had no idea *what* would happen after that, as far as getting us back to Santa Barbara. 150 miles away. Bother. BUT. Much less of a bother than the other, less appealing bothers, such as, oh I don't know, flailing around in the ocean clinging to my flotation device/airplane seat, or foraging ahead with the iffy landing in SB and ending up in flames.
We land at the absolutely desolate Bakersfield airport and the 30 or so of us just kind of mill about, not really sure what to do. There is literally no one in the entire airport except for us, a 19 year old security guard and an old Mexican man polishing the floors. The rental car counters are closed--all three of them. There is nary an airline agent to be seen, anywhere.
After a few minutes, the lone baggage claim carasol begins coughing up our luggage. We each gather our things and there is more milling about, lame jokes being cracked and weariness starting to show in people's tired expressions. By now it's 1am.
I had called Jeep the minute we had touched ground (which brought a hearty round of applause from the passengers,) and told him he was officially relieved of airport pick up duty. Turns out, he had been at the Santa Barbara airport for almost an hour, keeping tabs on my flight through the ticket agents there. He knew we were going to Bakersfield before we did.
Anyway, two airport employees eventually turn up (they were the only two working, save for the security guard and the floor polisher, so they had been the ones getting our luggage off the plane and such. I bet this is the most excitement that airport has seen in ages.) The plan is announced: they are going to cab us back to Santa Barbara. Not ideal, but nothing really is at this point.
I cab up with two other folks and am to the point of practically delirious when the cab driver pulls into the cab yard and says we have to switch cars, so why don't we go into the office and just chill for a minute while he checks some maintenance stuff. Sure, why not? I can honestly say that the cab dispatch office in Bakersfield, CA was one of the LAST places I expected to be at 1:30 in the morning. The dispatcher was a chain-smoking riot, though. He proudly told us he's been dispatching since 1962, after he gave up cross country trucking. Everything there was old school--the bulletin board with stick pins to indicate where cabs were, the handwritten notebook logs of calls and assignments, the neon posterboard announcements reminding cabbies and dispatchers alike of important things, such as "Do NOT tell customers that we are too busy to get them, tell them the police department takes too long approving new applications and THAT'S why it takes so long to get them. BE POLITE."
We clamber into our second cab and weave our way through the Bakersfield streets, resigning ourselves to a long ride. I popped in my iPod earphones and tried to drift off, to no avail. I did manage a nice state of relaxation, until I felt us slow down and pull off to the side of the highway.
Why did we pull over to the side of the highway? The cab overheated. Of course it did.
After a spell of cooling off, we were back on our way and at the perky hour of 3:30 am, I was being dropped off at the gate. I opted to walk the block and a half to my actual place, so that the cabbie could get the other people to their destinations as quickly as possible. Take it from me, it is rather eery walking through an avocado grove in the middle of the night. There are zero streetlights, the fog was dense, and the only sound was that of my suitcase wheels bouncing merrily along the road. I was hoping with all the energy I had left that I didn't encounter any coyotes or skunks, both of which are rather plentiful in these parts.
By 4:15, I was showered and in bed. I read about three pages of a magazine before my body just quit on me. I slept until 11:30am, save for a 15 minute phone call from my dad at 8 this morning. It's good to be home.
