A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

So, as I healed—slowly, to my mind—I kept trying to decide whether I should try to make this reunion. Our 55th—let's face it; how many more can we hold? I was trying to balance my fear of being miserable with my hip for the whole trip, with my desire to be with at least some of my old friends, not to mention seeing my sisters, again.

And then, Hurricane Helene tore through the Florida Panhandle, with very thorough flooding all along the coast. It was barely over when I got a call from my high school buddy Chris Palmes, with whom I'd gone on multi-state road trips, actually lived with, been to the wedding of, and so on. I knew he lived in Lakeland, Florida, which is not that far from Tampa.

"Everything got soaked," he said, "but no real problems." He then wanted to know if I were going to be able to make the reunion; and I explained about my hip, which by now, a month after surgery, was not healing as fast as I'd hoped. "But I'd like to," I added. "Are you?"

Chris explained that he and his wife had both planned to attend, and he had bought the tickets; but then Deb's sister became seriously ill and she had to fly to Pennsylvania to be with her. So now Chris had no plus-one. "But if you fly into Tampa instead of Jacksonville," he proposed, "I could pick you up at the airport and we could drive right to St. Augustine. I'm planning to get a motel and we can go back the next day."

"Well, better than that, I'm sure we could stay at my sister's; she has a spare room and couches galore."

So I grit my teeth, and got a refundable ticket from CheapOAir.com I'll get into that later. For now, the point is (as you probably know), you need to buy a ticket a month in advance if you want the lowest fares. So I got a reservation for a flight that would leave on the 18th, allowing us to attend the event on the 19th, and also the brunch on the 20th, before returning to Lakeland on the 21st and I would fly home on the 22nd.

And, two weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit. And, unlike Helene, Milton smashed across the bulk of Florida, hitting Lakeland, among other places, really bad. The water had risen to 4 inches inside his house.

These are the photos Chris sent me of the devastation outside.

Then he texted, "I would love to go Paul but I really have my hands full with inventory and waiting for adjusters. I hope you can stop by either coming or going or both."

The thing is, by now, I actually did feel well enough to make the trip. I had started physical therapy which helped a lot. Chris said the water had gone down since the worst of it, and he had a camper that was untouched that I could stay in. So I kept my tickets for Tampa, but made further arrangements for a rental car and planned to spend the night at Chris' before continuing on to St. Augustine.

Okay, so now let's talk about the tickets I got from CheapOAir. I don't think my problem is with them; I think it's with Frontier Airlines. CheapOAir offered an awesome price for the round trip, something like $280. I took it without noticing that the number of stops along the way was whatever it might be, instead of non-stop, which I prefer and was certainly available. But instead I wound up on two flights: One to Cincinnati, and another—on what turned out to be the same physical aircraft—to Tampa.

But that wasn't the annoying part. Frontier's new business model is to offer a la carte air travel. First, you buy the ticket. But then you have to buy a seat. And you have to pay to have a carry-on!

I would now never accept a flight on Frontier for that alone. There's nothing I hate more than being nickeled-and-dimed to death, because it's inherently dishonest.

But what was done, was done. Because my ex, Michael, lives much closer to the airport than I do, we planned for me to spend last night on his sofa, and he could drive me to the airport at 5 AM and have the use of my Tesla while I was gone.

I had wheelchair service at the airport take me from the entrance, through security, and to my gate, where they left me.

A few minutes later, the gate was changed. I had to push my own wheelchair to the new gate.

On board, I noticed the plane was laid out differently. There was no first class section. Also, there was no padding on the seats. Yes, the seats were contoured, but it sure wasn't to my spine. And even the informational card seemed to have been written by an AI:

Oh, did I say they nickeled-and-dimed me? I have never in my life flown on a plane that charged for a Diet Coke, much less $4.

In Cincinnati, although the plane was the same, I had to get off and re-check in. My new seat was by the window, which was only marginally better than my previous middle seat. And I tell you, those contoured seats had to have been designed by the Marquis de Sade. And, if not, whoever it was should be sentenced to sit in one of them for four hours.

The view, since I had a window, of the approach into Tampa was beautiful, with little obvious evidence of the recent hurricanes.

The car rental people had a shuttle. I rented a little Toyota Camry which I didn't much mind since I've previously owned and loved one. However, I'm now used to my self-driving Tesla so actually having to steer wasn't something I much enjoyed.

I used Google to get me to Chris' place in Lakeland. It only took a couple hours; the hardest part was convincing Google I didn't want to take any toll roads.

(Back when I lived in Florida, there was exactly one toll road, the Florida Turnpike. But I guess since DeathSantis got into office he's been busy privatizing Florida's roads. So now, in the Tampa area at least, there's dozens of them, making it almost impossible to get anywhere without having to pay a toll.)

But eventually I got to Chris' house, which is no longer flooded but definitely smelled of mildew. Nevertheless we talked for several hours before I headed into the camper for the night.