Lost keys ... missed flights ... bad weather. But was it really the vacation from hell?
You’ve heard of the vacation from hell?
I suspect our visiting family wasn’t alone in having that experience during the holidays, given the constraints of the pandemic, staffing and equipment shortages, weather and other factors.
But to have all of the above and more during one journey seems overkill.
That’s what befell Son Sean, his fiancé Jenny and her son Nico during their long-anticipated Christmas-Day-to-New-Year’s-Eve visit to Cambria.
Even a delightful overnight visit from Sean’s youngest daughter Alyssa had its downside at the end.
Luckily, between travel travails, we shared some lovely family times together, various bright spots and one instance in which they definitely lucked out.
I doubt any of us would trade in a minute of those good times, despite the wierdnesses that laced them together. But the upheavals ruled their itinerary and ours.
Like, how?
• Their late discovery that the rental car they’d reserved wouldn’t be waiting for them after all. The rental counter closed at 8 p.m., and their flight wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 90 minutes later.
• Sister discoveries that Uber, Lyft and taxi rides weren’t available between San Luis Obispo and Cambria that late on a holiday evening.
• Then that glitch became a moot point at the airport when their Phoenix-to-San Luis Obispo flight never got off the ground, with them 35 miles from their home.
Bad weather ultimately caused the cancellation an hour AFTER the flight’s originally scheduled departure on Christmas night.
• They couldn’t redeem the free-meal vouchers provided by the airline because no nearby restaurants were serving food that late on the holiday.
• Their comped, thin-walled hotel room put them next to some loud, late-night partiers. Sleep? What’s sleep?
• Bright Spot No. 1 was when their early flight Dec. 26 actually took off and landed as scheduled.
• It was followed immediately by Bright Spot No. 2, actually finding a rental car waiting for them in SLO, an unexpected bonus given that industry’s well-documented staffing shortages and supply-chain issues.
• A big misfortune for businesses and travelers happened along Highway 1 toward Big Sur, but it was lucky timing for our group?
They’d taken a quick side trip to show Nico their special place at Ragged Point. They bought him a burger ... but decided he should eat it in the car so they could get to our house sooner.
Why was that decision pivotal? Because about 30 minutes after they’d traveled south through the Polar Star area between Ragged Point and the elephant seal rookery, a sudden rockslide buried and blocked both lanes of the roadway there. Welcome to rainy winters north of San Simeon!
Why is that their trip’s ultra-lucky Bright Spot No. 4? They could very easily have been among the motorists trapped by the slide, who then had to go the very long way around to continue their southbound travels.
• Holiday traffic? On Monday, Alyssa’s usual five-hour drive home to Upland took her more than nine agonizing hours to complete!
• Another bummer related to the rockslide? Our tour reservations at the Piedras Blancas Light Station, north of the closure, were canceled. That was to have been our Christmas gift to Nico.
• Then the young man missed his flight back to Phoenix on Tuesday!
It seems airline clerks hadn’t told his mom they had to be at the airport at least 15 minutes earlier than usual to fill out some “minor child flying alone” paperwork.
As bad luck would have it, the same clerk manning the ticket counter alone that afternoon switched to the gate area 30 minutes before flight time to begin readying the passengers for loading onto the plane. No, she couldn’t fill out the paperwork there.
• We left the airport about 1 p.m. and went to lunch at perhaps the most famous spot in San Luis Obispo, which was on Jenny’s bucket list. The iconic restaurant there was so busy, so packed with diners, and so short staffed (no bussers!) that it took us more than two-and-a-half hours to be seated, order our simple lunch, be served, eat and pay.
• The next available flight for Nico was the next morning ... at 6 a.m. They had to be at the airport by 4 a.m., because the airline had two packed flights leaving at about the same time, and lines were expected to be long.
Sleep? Again, not much.
Bright spot No. 5, though? We got to spend more time with Nico, and his flight — his first on his own — took off and landed as scheduled.
• Off-and-on rain Dec. 29 put the kibosh on some plans, but our Bright Spot No. 6 was a delicious meal on the covered-and-heated outdoor deck at Robin’s. The sound of pounding rain on the deck’s roof made a soothing counterpoint to our lively conversation, the warm welcome, the great food and our view of Shanny’s lovely but rain-drenched garden.
• Beautiful weather the next day and our visit to my acquired sister Gloria Fiscalini and her spectacular home and ranchland combined as a delightful Bright Spot No. 7.
• And there was a Dim-Bulb-to-Bright Spot about a lost set of car keys, found three days later on a high shelf on top of a big box of kosher salt. Who cares how they got there! Now we don’t need to replace the $150 electronic fob.
As always, it was heart-wrenching as Sean and Jenny left Dec. 31, which somewhat dimmed Bright Spot No. 8. Their flight to Phoenix left only slightly late, and they arrived in time for them to collapse at home for a safe-and-sane New Year’s Eve.
Which is exactly what a work-exhausted, double-shifted Brian and I did here in Cambria. “Happy new year, honey. G’night.”
So, on balance, that vacation’s bright spots far outweighed all those dim bulb glitches, and having the mid-pandemic time together was such a delight and a joy.
A vacation from hell? According to them, not even. “Mom, it’s how airline travel is these days,” flight-experienced Sean said philosophically about their weird sendoff to 2021.
Here’s wishing us, them and y’all a wonderful 2022, filled with safe, on-time travels, no COVID, many bright spots and no more grinchy glitches.
At this point, I think we’re all due, right?
