Someone didn’t want us to come on vacation. I’m convinced of it. We made it anyway…so there!
On Thanksgiving morning, we had no idea what the lines would be like at LAX for our flight to Loreto. I was not planning on taking any risks, so we left at about 9 a.m. for the 40 minute drive up to LAX. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 12:30 p.m. Good thing we left early. We had a busy day ahead of us!
We were planning on parking at a Park and Fly lot, just outside of LAX located on the corner of Century Blvd and Sepulveda Blvd. I kid you not…no more than 100 feet from our parking lot, we get creamed in the middle of the intersection! A 25 year old kid had driven all night long from Washington, and apparently was so tired that he didn’t see the red light telling him to stop. Well, our Explorer made him stop! See…
Oh we stopped him alright! This was at about 9:45 a.m. Less than 3 hours before our flight leaves.
Luckily, we had some very quick responders from the LAX police and the LAPD. As Sarah said, "I hope we are not on TV with this!" She’s seen too many police videos on TV before! I told her to "look your best for the camera!" She didn’t like that!
Mardi was taken to Marina Del Rey hospital. She had a sore neck after the accident. Clara was fine…she was laughing and "ooh"ing at all the sirens and flashing lights. Sarah was shaken up a good bit. Even a day later, she’s been talking about how she can still "see" the wreck in her mind. She’s doing fine, though. Mardi only had a muscle strain, and I have a sore ankle. Given the speed that the other dude was traveling, I thing the Lord definitely was looking out for us!
Given all of this, I was ready to go home and call off the trip. I was able to get the police report finished, get a ride with the police to an Avis Rental office, rent a car, load the girls and all the luggage up, and find Mardi’s hospital. I finally got to the hospital at about 11:15 a.m. Less than 1-1/2 hours before our flight.
This is where it really starts to get surreal! I walk in to the ER lugging Clara and Sarah behind me, Mardi is laying on an ER bed with other moaning patients in the room, and the first thing out of her mouth is "If we hurry, we just might make our flight!" Huh? I was resigned to going home, and all the time Mardi is here lying in the ER scheming on how we could possibly make our flight. Apparently, she also had a cooperative ER nurse that was pushing all the other ER staff to hurry up to get Mardi discharged so we could make our flight! We were discharged at 11:30 a.m., exactly one hour before our flight was to leave. I have never heard of an emergency room visit that lasted less than 2 hours, and here we are with Mardi being discharged 1 hour and 45 minutes after our accident. Wow!
You have to understand the mindset here. Alaska Airlines was what we were flying. They only have 3 flights a week to Loreto…Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday. Missing our flight would delay us until Sunday, and that would make the effort a lot less worthwhile. We would have been limited to a 2 day trip rather than a 6 day trip. Mardi convinced me to try to make it! So off we go to the parking lot…the same one that we didn’t make it to before.
Arriving at the parking lot at around 11:40 a.m., we jump out, already resigned that there was no way we could make an international flight with 40 minutes before departure and we weren’t even in the airport yet! We were now at the mercy of a parking lot van driver that was not in the biggest of hurries! We roll up to Terminal 3 at 11:55 a.m. – 35 minutes before departure. There is no way we’re going to make it!
No waiting at the counter…everyone else is checked in! We find a sympathetic gate agent, and we are checked in in record time…all the while making sure our bags would definitely make it! Off we went to security…no problems getting through! Off to the gate at a fast pace…we get to the gate at 12:25 p.m. We were next to last to get on the plane! Amazing!
And what greeted us in Loreto? Jonathan’s bag didn’t make it down…bummer. But look at that sunset! Now that is the way to start relaxing after a Thanksgiving that we’ll never forget!
