16th September, 2004. 2:49 pm

OK, so I had a feeling that if I said we’d be out the door by noon, it would be closer to 1 pm – and we left at 1:20.

The “fun” started less than 5 minutes from home. Chris stops at the gas station to fill the tank, and when he tries to start the car after filling up, the battery is dead! This is not an uncommon occurrence with the van, and thanks to the battery pack my mom got Chris last Christmas, we zapped the battery and were on the road right away.

The original plan, as made back in March, was for us to drive to Syracuse from our home in the Buffalo, NY area on the 16th, and fly to Ft. Lauderdale that night, then stay at the Marriott Biscayne Bay in Miami until Saturday.

As of when we left home, we were scheduled for stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Ocho Rios – however, as Grand Cayman was hit very hard by Hurricane Ivan, we knew we were not going there. Costa Maya had been substituted for GC, but we didn’t know that yet.

We arrived at the airport and checked in, and went through airport security. Now we knew that I would set off the metal detector because of my necklace, but Talia’s shoes apparently have metal in them, so she had to be hand-wanded as well. Of course, do something once with her, and you have to do it every time.

Got up to the gate, only to find out that the flight was delayed because Hurricane Ivan had flooded Atlanta, and the airport was all but closed. We had the option of staying at the airport in the hopes of flying out that night, or re-scheduling for Friday. We chose the latter, and while Chris and Talia collected our luggage, I sat on the floor at the airport and used Priceline to reserve us a room at the Wyndham.

This actually worked out well for us, because we were able to leave the van at Wyndham and take the shuttle back to the airport, instead of paying for parking at the airport.

The next morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport, and flew out as scheduled. While waiting between flights in Cincinnati, I called the Biscayne Bay to double-check our reservation for that night, and it had been cancelled! So yet again, I hit Priceline and found us yet another hotel, this time the Sheraton Biscayne Bay, which had the advantage of having a Budget rental car return right in the hotel. So the one bit of the trip that I hadn’t planned – getting from FLL to Miami – finally fell into place.