NOTE: This is a repeat. Your hostess is (again literally) eagerly anticipating the upcoming (October 2026) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, wondering what this now fifth, all access, backstage, experience will become!
So I get back to the room very early in the morning of December 12, 2021. It’s near 1:30AM, I have a 7:00 flight, so the alarm was set for 4:00. No purpose in getting cleaned up, sleeping a little, getting up, doing my makeup, packing and going to the airport. I just laid on top of the bed in my clothing and makeup and as usual, woke up before the alarm, around 3:45. Got packed and out the door and in a 5:00 cab a little early. In fact we get to the airport by 5:00. Get checked in and settled for my 7:00 flight.
Here I am, heading out for what ended up being the longest day of my life!
Delay…..delay….delay….delay….cancelled! This happens around noon.
Now during this whole process (remember this is a Kandi trip), I make friends with a grandmother heading back home from spending quite a bit of time helping with the grandchildren, in a difficult situation. We talked about that and many other things. Her name was Dawn. Also, my friends Tameika and her daughter Alaja are also on the flight to Cleveland through Houston. Alaja is a precocious 10-year-old model and very good! Tameika is her blind mother. We met at the Ohio Fashion Week show all three of us walked. Now we’re all in the same pickle.
Dawn secured another flight out of nearby Hattiesburg, and she leaves with hugs for all of us. Now the three of us are a team and it is pretty good that I was there for them. We had earlier booked a Plan B out of New Orleans, so I figured it was time to move to that. We then find out that flight was also cancelled, so we ended up having to fly out of Mobile, AL. I get the flights lined up, argue for baggage refunds, get taxi and food vouchers and a cab to take us to the new airport, almost an hour away. We get there with about four hours to kill before we fly to Charlotte, connecting to Cleveland.
Here we are just before finally boarding the first flight, over 12 hours from when we were originally supposed to do so.
Quick story. Tameika was in a wheelchair all of the time we spent in the airport, Alaja pushing her and me carrying baggage. Alaja wonders if her mother should get out of the wheelchair. I tell her absolutely not, that chair would get us extra help and on the plane before anyone else. That worked!
We were originally scheduled to arrive in Cleveland at about 1:30PM, we are now scheduled to arrive in Cleveland at 12:30AM the following day. I then had to get my bag and help them get theirs, I volunteer to drive them home (not that far from the airport, but in the opposite direction for me). My arrival time at home was about 2:00AM, December 13. Now remember, I am in full makeup, which has now been on my face for almost two days. I then have to shower, and I basically just get dressed and ready to go to work as there are a few things I usually do on Sundays for work the next day. When I removed my makeup, I was actually grateful for that damned mask! I looked like Grizzly Adams….
Over the course of the two days I was involved with the show for about seventeen hours and in transit for almost 24 hours. I consumed one single meal over this period and my hydration, due to circumstances, consisted of two Manhattans on Saturday (they were GREAT!) and two Bud Lights on Sunday. Very little sleep and a tremendously frustrating day, if not rewarding for my soul. My friends would have had some troubles without my help or the help of a sighted person. They would have gotten through, but it may have taken them well into the next day.
Would I do it all over again? Of course, except I would not have booked the United flight home as Delta flew flawlessly in a little later flight that I surpassed to try to get home earlier (I came down on Delta, exactly on time). You never know…..
Bonus content: Here are the pictures taken by a professional photographer on site in each outfit I walked.
5 Responses
Kandi,
And through it all you were just another woman trying to get home. I was stuck in Hartsdale, Atlanta Airport in a similar situation.
Yep! Exactly!
Thanks sweetheart!
My oh my Kandi, I’m not sure I would have held up as well as you, I work for the airlines and I get frustrated at these kind of issues when flying so I’m glad it worked out and I’m fairly sure you flew on AA to get back which well that is my lively hood
This was a great adventure indeed and sounds like other than the few hiccups you came through it like a champ or something like that
And such a nice gesture to take your friends home when you made it back
You have such a beautiful heart and soul my dear
Hugs Rachael
It was a remarkable sojourn! Thanks my dear, dear friend!!
I had a 48 hour flight day a few years ago. I got to Sydney Airport at 7:30 to go thru customs for the 11 am flight. We finally board at 1 pm. After sitting on the plane for 30 minutes, the flight gets cancelled. A torn gasket. Exit the plane and have to go thru immigrations to get back into Aussie land. The airline
now has to rebook 200 people. After several hours I get book on a flight out of Melbourne. Had to go thru airport security to get to in-country airport on the other side of the airport. Fly to Melbourne, 1.75 hour flight, retrieve my bag and head to security and then customs. The 4 pm flight doesn’t arrive until 3 am the next morning, stuck in the airport all this time. I get in to LAX (after the 17 hour flight ) at just after midnight and go thru immigration and don’t get out till after 1 am and NOTHING is open. Wait in line for about another hour to see what the airline will give me, hotel wise, and they offers me a hotel that is 45 minutes away and I have a 7 am flight out to my home airport. I would need to get back at 5:45, so I “slept” in the baggage claim area of the next carrier with about 20 other souls. Went thru security for the 4th time and in that terminal none of the food places would take the food voucher. Last flight was nice and short , about an hour. My friend met me with my car, I dropped him off at his house and drove the 45 mile trip over the mountain to my house.
That’s my 50 hour trip from hell.