Our flight home was scheduled to leave at 5:10 from beautiful, busy and efficient Miami International Airport (known as MIA, quite appropriately as things turned out).  We had been vacationing in the Florida Keys for a week and were making our way back to civilization. 

At 2:10 we were still vacationing, wandering around the Everglades on tiny  footpath looking for alligators.   We came upon a small group and after the initial excitement Arthur, the CPA, said they remind him of work.

"Oh?"

"Tax season...." he shrugged.

After a quick change into long pants and long sleeves in the 80 degree sunshine, we headed for Miami and the elusive car return area.  Alamo starts with A.  The car rental  places may or may not be in alphabetical order but if they are we stared at the Z end.  Alamo was the last one along the road,  just before we got to Fort Lauderdale it seemed.

We jumped from the car, hauled our luggage out of the trunk and started towards the check-in office, veered back to the car to eject Jimmy Buffet from the tape player and then ran to  the airport shuttle bus. 

"Vitch 'line you go?"  asked the mustachioed bus driver.  (No one in Miami speaks unaccented mid-american TV English.  Some sort of local ordinance, I think.) 

We said, "American"

"International?"

"Domestic." we chorused.

"Domestic? Domestic?  No Domestic. International?"  He's driving on a six lane highway, looking sideways at us, mostly ignoring the traffic.

"No,"  Art said.  "Domestic.  National.  Like New York. American"

"Oh," the driver said, nodding, although the tone was pure disbelief.

Moments later we pulled up at what the driver announced was the "American National" terminal.  The International doors were 20 feet away.

At the main desk we presented our photo ID's and our electronic "tickets" and got boarding passes.  The sweet girl behind the counter said "Boarding at gate D19 at 4:30.  Departing on time."  We looked at the clock and saw we had time to kill so we went to the bar and had the best margarita's of the trip.  This is no idle praise,  several, even many margaritas previously been consumed on those sunny little coral rocks to the south. 

At 4:33 we discovered that the plane at D19 was going to Lima Peru. 

We had not planned on doing this.

We eventually located our plane departing from gate D11.  Except it wasn't.  Departing.  There were 30 or so passengers milling about and no one at the gate to give information or take passes or aid and comfort.  We just all stood around starting rumors.

4:33 became 4:50. 

Someone came along and said oh,  I don't know,  I just work here, I can't tell you anything.  That's an actual quote: "I don't know.  I just work here. I can't tell you anything."

Company policy?  Union rules?  Who knows.

I went off to find the information desk.  I found one.  There was no one there to give any information, accurate or inaccurate.  I  sprinted to the American Eagle desk to be told by the agent there that the flight departing D11 at 5:10 was not departing from D11, she didn't know where it would depart from.  She knew it was in fact not departing until 7:30 PM, if then.  She smiled.  She had provided information.  I smiled back, rather woodenly I'm afraid.

Art went back to the front desk to see about switching us to another flight  because if the 5:11 flight didn't leave until 7:30 we probably wouldn't make our 8:15 connection in New York because we wouldn't get there until nearly 10 PM and did they see the problem with that?

A brief affair with the computer revealed that we had been booked on different flights out of both Miami and New York;  we just hadn't been told of the change.  The nice man would not give Art our boarding passes because I wasn't with him with photo id. 

He came and fetched me, Art did -- I was still waiting at D11 -- and we went skipped merrily along, holding hands and whistling to D29 to get out boarding passes as that's where the 7:30 flight to JFK was departing from. 

Okay, the holding hands and whistling and skipping parts are not true. What's true was that the 7:30 flight to JFK  wasn't.  Not at D29 it wasn't.  At D29 was a plane going to Santa Domingo. 

The helpful ticket-hander-out person gave us boarding passes for our flight, which she claimed was now leaving at gate E9.  She didn't think this was the proper thing to do.  Our luggage, you see, was booked on a different flight and they shouldn't be allowing us on a flight without our luggage. 

"Great, "Art said, his tone denying the word, "you've got nearly two hours to go out and haul it off the plane that is now not leaving until 8:30 if then or ever and put it on the new plane leaving at 7:30. 

She shook her bushy, blond head, made tsk tsk noises with a rather pointed tongue and said, "I doubt it. " 

We walked to E9, found it jammed packed with people going to London.

We figured we would not probably be allowed on that plane either so we looked around and found that the plane we were now booked on to go to JFK was leaving from E11. 

American kept making announcements to the passengers waiting for the London flight that they needed 20 or so people to accept overnight accommodations and $500 to fly on to London the next day. They kept making the announcement.  It seemed no one was going to stay at MIA any longer than necessary, even for overnight accommodations and $500. 

I volunteered, but when they learned I wasn't going to London they wouldn't pay up and they wouldn't give me the free hotel room either, and it was beginning to look like we might need the room.

We boarded the plane.  Our plane.  Well, our current plane, baring further changes.   We didn't have seats together, so we waved back and forth from B24 to 20F until a young fellow came along and announced that he would graciously give up 20E for me to move and sit next to Art.

I was aisle 24B, next to a quiet  college girl who was intent on reading.  He was a good looking 25 year old; obviously hoping to get her not to read. 

I went to sit next to Art and a couple with a screaming baby. The baby screamed, cried, fussed for 2 of the 3 hours.  The other hour she whimpered.  I was so glad to sit next to Art.  The young fellow didn't seem to have much luck with the college girl either.

We landed late at JFK because we took off late from MIA.  About 45 minutes late.  We had less than 10 minutes to get from A1 where we landed to A40 where American Eagle Twilight Zone flight 100 was departing.

We ran.  We huffed.  I said go on ahead and get them to hold the plane. 

We got to the gate only to be told by a young lady that the bus had already boarded.  We groaned.  An older male agent loitering nearby said, "No, just call the bus back."

See, at JFK, to fly to on American Eagle, you take a bus about 1/2 a mile out in the middle of the runway and then board the plane. 

So they brought the bus back and we ran down two flights of stairs and boarded it.  It was being driven by a lighter skinned second cousin of the Alamo bus driver in Miami.  Mustache and all.  And everyone in New York has an accent too;  one of Gulliani's rules.

Just as we sat down the bus lurched forward, settling us into our places.  Then it made a large and graceful circle on the tarmac and went back and picked up two more passengers.   Pulled away.   And made yet another circle and picked up three more passengers and started off.

Naturally the last three passengers to board began screaming at the bus driver to "Stop! stop!"  An excited discussion arose.  There were, it seemed,  more passengers.  Two more.  They were with them. The two with the three. They were traveling together. 

Unswayed by this impeccable logic, the bus driver kept going.  The rabble began to scream a bit louder for him to turn around.  He said "There's other busses and other flights" and kept going. 

Then he pulled up to another bus, more or less in the middle of nowhere in the middle of all that concrete that is JFK,  "Everybody off.  Get on the other bus." 

Flashes of being held captive aboard an airport bus went through our minds.  Like sheep, we boarded the other bus.  Maybe it was coffee break time for the first driver, or he had driven his union allocated miles for the day, mostly circling around to get more passengers to leave in the middle of nowhere.

The last three passengers to board the second bus were the same last three to board the first bus and they were still fuming about the other two passengers we were leaving behind.  The driver of the first bus boarded the second bus and said to them, "What is your problem.  Do you want to take it outside?" 

The second driver came to life and said "Get off my bus" to the first bus driver, who muttered something back. Mutter mutter.  Nasty words are used.  Finally the second bus driver said "Get off my bus now." 

The first bus driver got off. 

There was some scratchy crackle on the radio.  The bus started.  It went back to the terminal.  We were told to get off the bus.  We did.  We climbed back up the two flights of stairs and sat down.  We were told to wait. We waited. 

The crew arrived and was taken down to a bus.  We waited. 

Then we were told to board the bus.  Again.  So we did. 

And we were driven back out to  the plane and sat there on the bus, in the darkness, while the plane was refueled and the crew went aboard. Finally the lights were turned on and we were allowed to board the plane.  When we finally took off, we were only 45 minutes behind our latest revised, tentative schedule.

We hoped the plane was actually going to Albany.

Something seemed to be wrong with the heating system on the plane.  It was so cold on the plane that everyone requested blankets.  There weren't enough enough to go around.  The cabin steward wrapped his scarf around his head to keep his ears warm. 

At Albany the wind chill was -9 degrees. There were five or six inches of snow on the ground.  We got home just before midnight on Thursday.

Our luggage made no flights from Miami on Thursday, with or without us. 

It  made none on Friday either. 

Our luggage apparently arrived at the airport late Saturday afternoon.  American delivered it to our house at 3:30 in the morning on Sunday.  Three AM.  There was some sort of rush, I guess.  There they were.  All four pieces.  Everything was accounted for.  Three AM on a cold Sunday morning.

Monday  Southwest Airlines announced it's new schedule at Albany Airport to much fanfare and applause.