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| Corner Cafe - Yum |
From the start… we planned to go to the Corner Cafe in Riverside to get a good breakfast before we headed out. So my mother came over to get us and our bags (Kathy's weighed in at 40 lbs and mine at 45 lbs - but I had a good 10 lbs of body soap and hair care products from hers in mine…) to take us to CC. After arriving at 10:00 AM CST and meeting our daughter, Tonya, at CC, we waited for about 15 minutes due to its popularity and were seated. During all of that, I had the infinite wisdom to
Turns out, the itinerary changed slightly due to a little timing issue. You see, my original schedule said our flight left at 12:30 CST from KCI to head to Washington DC (Dulles), which then set us up for a 5:30 PM EST flight to Johannesburg. Basically there was no such United Airlines flight, so I scrambled back to my original itinerary, saw that it was real, and checked again. No luck. I then remembered that my travel agent sent me a revised itinerary that had some flight changes noted on the back end of the trip. It also happened to have a flight change at the beginning as well. That 12:30 flight was now 10:20 and it had already left. Crap.
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| Rob Admitting The Snafu |
We continued to eat our breakfast, though everyone’s stomach was churning with nerves - especially mine. I made some calls to United, they couldn't help. Called my travel agent, who was traveling herself, and left a message. Mom continued to look for alternatives on her phone as did I. Once we were done with breakfast, we headed back home to see what we could do. I then contacted South African Airlines, who had my original booking. They said my travel agent had to initiate the change and it was out of their hands. Crap.
I called my travel agent again and she just landed in LA, so I explained what happened (see above). She was not in a place where she could address it, however she had a peer back at the office call me around 15 minutes later with an update that she was working on getting me in the air as soon as she could. I let her go with great anticipation for a call back. A few minutes later, which seemed like an hour or so, I got a call back with some options. Long story short, what I heard on my end of the phone was great news and immediately got Kathy and Mom up and out the door while I was still on the phone. I traded my credit card information for the glorious change fees and new flight costs (ouch, that hurt), and we were on our way to KCI for a 2:30 PM CST flight to Newark NJ and a next day flight out of JFK.
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| Great Friends - Great Times |
You see, as things spin in my head, I recall that Kathy and I have some very awesome friends in NYC. On the way to KCI, I phoned Jodi and Stu, who we met in 2009 on an Alaskan cruise. I explained the “new plan” to Jodi and she graciously volunteered Stu to meet us at Newark at 6:30 PM EST. Once we arrived to the Rockaway Beach area, we were greeted by some of their friends at a beach house right off the Atlantic Ocean. It was a bit breezy, but very warm with friendship, food, and some adult beverages.
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| Still Daylight in Rockaway Beach |
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| Stu was ore out from the drive to NJ |
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