Honeymoon Travel
After hearing your program this morning I felt compelled to
write.
First of all, my wife travels for business about 80
nights or more a year. I'm senior travel photographer for a
magazine and travel some 180 nights a year. So when we planned
our honeymoon five years ago, we decided even thought it was
January, we'd go to NYC. Little Italy and dining and museums
and Broadway. If the weather was too bad, we'd just go inside
our room and "suffer through."
Leaving Birmingham at 7:30 a.m.
and stopping in Atlanta on the way to LaGuardia was fine. But we
were still in line hours later in Atlanta after a severe ice
storm froze the eastern seaboard. We were dressed in wool for
the arrival in NY. The airport was chaos. I looked like everyone
was trying to make the last flight out of Saigon in l975.
After
being moved from line to line, we finally made the counter.
Angry undercurrents all around, we didn't care. It was our
honeymoon. I first spoke to the agent with a question, "I guess
we're not going to NY?" He said no. We asked if we could use our
award travel for other places and he said sure. So we stepped
slightly back to see the monitors and scanned the world's
options. I'd just gotten back from an assignment in Mexico and
didn't want to go there. WE were without passports.
We discussed
a couple options and quickly decided that wine tasting in Napa,
San Francisco and the west coast sounded fun. The agent smiled
and said,"Wow, reasonable people, I can do that." We re-booked
through LA. I called my travel agent and said we're going to San
Francisco. Find us a place. We got out of Atlanta and felt good.
But of course, it was the day of the big LA earthquake at
Northridge. We did get in late to LA after runway crack
inspections and ended up in the Crown Room watching the
earthquake round us on TV with Gabriel Byrne standing next to
us. On the flight in, a CNN reporter talked on the air phone the
whole time between Atlanta and LA, setting up his coverage. We
were delayed there again.
Finally on our flight north, we were
telling a flight attendant in first about our day. She brought
out a bottle of champagne for us to take. We'd checked with our
travel agent while in LA and she said we were booked into the
Post Hotel ( I think) with a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in it
then. By the time we got there, it was midnight Pacific time. We
were dead after wedding and travel. We also were without
luggage. It made the only flight that got out of Atlanta to NY.
As we pulled up in front of the hotel at midnight in Union
Square, a bellman met us before I even got the car into park. He
said, "You must be the Meripols," and helped us in. As we got to
the front desk someone else met us on our side of the counter
and said, "We assumed you wouldn't have your luggage. Your agent
called. So here are some things you might need." He then handed
us two small bags with toiletry items. And he told us to take
our keys and go on up, we could check in the morning. Our
bellman took us to our room and said he was sure we could find
the lights and didn't need him and left. We found champagne iced
and flutes ready. From that moment on we had a great time.
Without warmer weather clothes, we decided to nap instead of
walking the streets. Had a ball, walked the city the following
day and have been the happiest couple ever since.
My lesson? Remain flexible, be nice.
-Art
{ Previous Letter
| This Week's Index |
Next Letter }
{ Main Letters Page }
