Craig's flight home

I tried to get Craig to write this entry so that it would be a first hand account, but his responses were:
1. "I don't have a blog."
2. "People would get confused."
3. "I am not a news contributor."

So, here I go, probing him for information and trying to get it all straight. I wonder how long it will be before he says he should have written this himself.

The first leg of Craig's flight was from Huntsville, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. It was set to depart at 7:50 AM. His plan was to leave the hotel (which was only minutes from the airport) at 6:45, fill up and return the rental car and have plenty of time to catch his flight. What he didn't plan for, however, was someone crashing their car and blocking the only road connecting his hotel to the airport. He sat in backed up traffic for 25 minutes before making it to the gas station, filled up quickly, and attempted to return the rental car, where problem #2 surfaced. There was no one in the lot to recieve his car. He decided to deal with that after checking in at the Delta counter. This is where problem #3 came in. There were a few people ahead of him in line, so Craig took the liberty to push his way to the front, where the lady told him that it was too late to check in for the flight. Craig informed her of the emergent need for him to be on the plane and gave her the stare down. (He is never pushy like that, but I have been given the stare down once or twice, and it does convince one to do what he wants!) She reluctantly checked him in, but would not check his bag.

After leaving the Delta counter, he ran back to the Dollar Rental Car Counter and turned in his keys, telling the agent there to just send him the receipt and ran across the airport to check in at security. (I'm going to quit listing problem #'s here, because honestly, I don't know what number I'm on anymore).

Security took one look at his suitcase and said. "Nope, too big." The security guard also got the stare down as Craig plopped the largest suitcase that we own on the belt. For some unknown reason, the guard let it go through and Craig was on his way again. A repeat for the final boarding was announced as he sprinted toward the gate flailing his arms. Amazingly, the gate agent not only allowed him to board the plane, but assured him that his suitcase would be plane-side checked after questioning how he got it through security. To top it off, there were 3 people waiting to fly standby that probably should have been allowed to board since he was not there until the very last second. Whew. He made it. Just time to sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes waiting for fog and heavy rain to clear.

The second (and final) leg of the flight was from Atlanta to Moline. Since there was such a long delay in the first flight taking off, the time to catch the second flight was cut very short. Thankfully, the gates were in close proximity because as Craig was departing the first, they were announcing the final boarding call for the second, and again he arrived just as the gates were closing. He was last person to board a plane for two of two times that day.

All in all, by noon he had landed in the Quad Cities by and PB delivered him to the hospital by 12:30. His luggage was believed to be lost forever, but even it turned up the next night. :) We now love Delta...they came through for us in our time of need!

It is amazing to me how God orchestrated this timing just perfectly. Once again we're a little befuddled as to why He does things the way that He does, but they always seem to work out in the end.