So, Miami.
It wasn’t exactly partying in the city where the heat is on, all night on the beach til the break of dawn. But it was a lot of fun. We had some great weather while we were there — New York is decidedly not 70-80 degrees and sunny — as well as some great food. And it’s always nice to start a new work week on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. I’m glad we went.
Getting there, on the other hand, was sort of a big hassle.
I went into work on Friday a little earlier than usual. We had a flight around 7 pm, so I wanted to leave the office around 4, to leave myself enough time to get to the airport and then through security once I’d arrived. I was on the train to Queens, which would drop me near the air-train shuttle to the airport (where I’d then meet up with my parents), when my father called my cell phone.
“Take your time,” he said. “The flight’s been pushed back to 8:45.”
Now, this happens. I understand and accept that nasty weather conditions (of which there were plenty that day) can, and often do, lead to delayed or canceled flights. If our flight had originally been at 8:45, I know I would not have gone in to work for 8 am — when absolutely nobody else was in the office. And it’s not even impossible to think I might have gone in later than usual, maybe even sleeping a little late. But, really, by this point, there wasn’t much else I could do except continue on my merry route to JFK and hope for the best.
I got a lot reading done while we waited, I’ll say that much1. We also saw Donald Sutherland at our gate, which was interesting. He looked much like he does on screen, but more rumply. I think he’d missed his flight altogether.
Anyway, we hung around in the Delta terminal for a few hours until they finally boarded our plane. And, while I didn’t do more than glance at my watch while we were flying, and I can’t say this with absolute certainty, I think we were only up in the air for about twenty minutes. We definitely weren’t up very long before the pilot announced that an odd vibration was going to be sending us back down. All perfectly safe, he assured us; the aircraft was otherwise handling just fine. Maintenance just wanted to play it safe and check things out.
Of course that did mean we would have to disembark.
And that we’d have to get a new plane.
And that we’d have to find a new flight crew. Because of course this one was now over their scheduled time limit and had to clock out and go home.
And of course that meant we wouldn’t be able to re-embark until about 12:30 am.
And of course nothing was open in that section of the terminal at that time of night. We couldn’t leave — not unless we wanted to give up altogether and head home, which I think some people did — and we couldn’t do much else except sit there and wait. Delta offered some cheap cookies and warm sodas (as well as cups of water for any smokers who might like to stand by an open door and use them as ashtrays), but it all seemed pretty half-hearted. All told, we were looking at about a six-hour delay from our original flight.
Did I mention that I don’t like to fly anyway?2
We finally, somehow, made it to Miami without further incident. Of course, by the time we got our luggage and the rental car and to the hotel, it was 4:30 in the morning. Just a little later than we’d expected.
But the rest of the weekend proper was very nice and pretty much made up for it.
We’d already called my sister to let her know meeting up for breakfast on Saturday probably wasn’t going to happen, but we managed to rouse ourselves in time for lunch and a trip over to Vizcaya, which is very pretty right on the water of the Biscayne Bay — even if there didn’t seem to be a lot to differentiate the villa from a dozen others built by early twentieth century industrialists and robber barons. We followed it up with a lovely dinner that evening at the Biltmore Hotel. We spent Sunday walking and driving around South Beach, doing some shopping, then dinner at another very good area restaurant.
We flew back yesterday afternoon, getting home a little before 8 pm.
We saw my sister just a couple of weeks ago at Christmas, and we’ll see her again in a couple of weeks in Maryland for her birthday. And she’s flying north to Maryland to spend the coming long weekend with her boyfriend and their friends. But still, I’m glad we went. She’s alone in an unfamiliar city, all but living out of a suitcase for the next couple of weeks, and I think she’s lonely down there. And besides, I’d never been to Miami. I’m not sure I saw enough of the city to form any definite opinions, but man do I miss being able to walk around in a short-sleeved shirt.
1 I’m only about two hundred pages into it — well under halfway done — but so far Dan Simmons’ The Terror is nothing short of terrific.
2 My stomach was reasonably well-behaved on the flight, maybe because I was so exhausted already, or maybe because we were on a larger plane than I’m used to. In recent years, I’ve taken mostly shorter trips to Pennsylvania and Detroit. On those, my inner ear and my eyes tended to have fierce disagreements about what was happening — “we’re bouncing up and down!” “no, we’re sitting perfectly still!” — and my stomach was usually a casualty of that. I haven’t been really and truly sick on a plane in years, but I do get queasy. Take-offs and landings are the worst, and even to and from Miami I made sure to keep my eyes shut for both. I take my eyes out of the equation, and under absolutely no circumstances look out the window, and I’ve usually been fine. I was more so this time than usual, which was a pleasant surprise.