Stardate 2012, Day Three of my Mississippi Captivity. :)
I waited around the hotel today, awaiting word on the airplane. I ate the Continental Breakfast downstairs, and ate lunch out of the vending machine (Combos and a diet coke) because there isn't anywhere within walking distance and I didn't want to get a cab. Finally around 3 or 4, I figured I was here for another night, and I gave up and called a cab company to take me to some place that would have somewhere for me to buy a change of clothes, a meal, and a movie. Might as well entertain myself while I can, right? Funny, my options were to either get 3 different cabs to do all three of those things, skip one of them, or go all the way into Memphis. So what they hey, I went to Memphis, to this big mall, which I found out later is the biggest one in the area/state maybe.
I am definitely a strange lady, because when I entered the mall, I was instantly overwhelmed. It was loud, and crowded, and several stories tall with shops everywhere, and what other people would see as a shopping haven, I saw as Too Many Options. I saw stores Kaylee would love and went in to try to find something for her, and left empty handed. There was a restaurant in there, so I got my dinner, and then I went looking for a shirt. It was impossible. I didn't want a shirt with sequins or wings or giant flowers or paisleys. I just wanted...a shirt. Maybe even a nice shirt, but just a blasted shirt. I gave up. I can wash this one again. :) I did go watch Mission Impossible 4 though. I wish Red Tails was out, but that's tomorrow, and I enjoyed MI. Watching that on the big screen is visually pretty great, particularly the scenes with a lot of height, like up on the building in Duboi. Gave me the "step back" feeling and I LIKE heights.
The town I'm actually in is small, and their cab company is a guy who takes the car home with him at night, and two dispatchers who take turns. Originally they weren't going to take my credit card even though they advertised credit cards, because they don't have a card reader, they just take an impression of a credit card the old fashioned way and run it later. If somebody's card is bad, the driver has to pay for it himself. So they're getting leery about taking cards, obviously. When he met me, the driver asked me why I was there. I told him I was basically stuck here while an airplane was getting maintenance. As soon as I said airplane, he lit up. He started asking me what airport I flew into, and I couldn't remember the name at first, and he kept insisting, so finally I looked it up and told him. He said "NOW I'm believing what you're telling me. Let's get you to Memphis." He loves airplanes, had gotten a ride in a Stearman out of this same little airport, and...his father was a WWII pilot. Who flew P-51s. Not in combat. He was already a pilot when the war broke out, and I guess he had a job teaching and transporting planes around. The driver said he and his brothers used to wear his dad's flight jackets until they fell apart, then they took the patches off and kept them. So of course I told him about Nathan's airplanes, and he couldn't believe it. We talked all the way there, when he got ready to drop me off, he said "How are you getting home?" I said I was going to call a cab. He whistled and said "If you call a Memphis cab, they'll run you around and kill you on cost, and if you call my company, the dispatcher will say you're too far out here for me to come get you." He then gave me his personal cell phone number and told me to call him directly, and he'd come back and get me himself. Which he did, at 9:30 pm, out of his way. WAY out of his way. I appreciated his help and I tipped to show it.
Well, the airplane is supposed to be ready for me tomorrow morning. The weather has been beautiful here...until tonight. I'm now looking at fog, but it's not supposed to be here in the morning. I'll believe that when I see it. Hope so. I'm supposed to go to St. Louis tomorrow on my way home. Kokomo has been getting nailed with snow, so I've heard, and there's more yucky stuff coming tomorrow late afternoon early evening, supposedly, so it's going to be a wait-and-see kind of morning as to whether or not I can safely get out of here in time to safely get into St. Louis and Kokomo. Hope so--obviously. I like this area fine, but I wanna get home...
I have plenty of stories from this trip, but haven't felt like writing them out I guess. I will say I have picked off all my nails again. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment