[LLaffinPlace]

D-Day Minus 1... Neither Snow nor Rain nor Sleet nor Dark of Night
This was a work day; I am mostly packed with but a few odds and ends to toss in the bag tomorrow morning. The Weather Channel is predicting some snow, sleet, and freezing rain starting tonight, and the National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for North Alabama. I have resolved to remain calm. [img]graemlins/ukid.gif[/img] Work is frantic, trying to make sure that everyone knows what to do while I am away. I left work pretty much on time (victory!) and headed home to eat and do some last-minute tasks. I switched over to The Weather Channel (why look outside when you can just pick up a remote?) to hear that Delta Airlines (our carrier for this trip) has cancelled 500+ flights into and out of Atlanta in anticipation of the bad weather. I sprinted for the bedroom and logged onto AOL to pull up the Delta website and discovered--to my horror--that one of those flights is our well-planned 6:45 AM flight from Huntspatch to Atlanta. Rats! I grabbed the cell phone and called Bob and he headed to my house to pick me up to go to the airport to see what we could do about this. We arrived about two minutes after the Delta counter closed. Doh! Regroup! Returning to my house we called the Delta Skymiles 800 number. A human being answered eventually. Yes, she could get us to Orlando-- after Midnight Wednesday night instead of before Noon as previously planned. We grudgingly agreed, but while being transferred (don't ask me why) to lock in the reservation, those last seats were booked by someone else. [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] And now Delta says they cannot get us into Orlando--or Tampa or Melbourne--even 48 hours late! They can get us OUT of Huntsville, just not into Florida. We started chanting "refund" and they switched us (again!) to accomplish that.
NEW PLAN! We realize we are both essentially packed except for shaving kits, etc., so we will leave now--hopefully ahead of the storm--and drive to Disney World. They're not going to make us 2 days late! I threw tomorrow's clothes--already laid out (can you tell you're dealing with engineers here?)--and the shaving kit into a duffel, the remaining bananas and apple cinnamon bagels in a plastic bag, and threw my stuff into Bob's car, he having graciously volunteered his wheels for the trip. We then headed to his house in the snowy sleet to get Bob's stuff. He did his last-minute things while I loaded up his CD changer with Harry Potter #1 (I make no apologies for liking these books! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ). We departed Madison, Alabama at 10:54 PM CST in the snow. Woohoo!
There was much discussion as to what route to take, trying to take into account the weather, which was degrading, and where the warmer temperatures were. We discarded the idea of cutting over toward Chattanooga and down I-75, and also nixed driving to Birmingham and taking I-20 over to Atlanta as there were already reports of road problems. Best to head East and South as quickly as possible, so Rt. 431 to Anniston to pick up I-20 to Atlanta and then South to Florida! We carefully watched the temperature display hover around 32 degrees--34, 33, 32, dropping as low as 30 on Sand Mountain around Boaz where we began to see icy buildup on trees and some slushy stuff on the roads. There was precious little traffic, but considerable snow which lent an appropriate "warp drive" effect in the headlights. By the time we descended from the plateau that is Sand Mountain we now had fairly heavy rain and a climbing temperature. The running joke was that travelling as we were--at night--the kids would sleep through most of the trip. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] We stopped in Villa Rica, GA, at 3:00 AM EST, having lost an hour when we crossed into the Eastern Time Zone, and got a room at the Comfort Inn to get some sleep. The alarm clock was set for 8:30 AM.
Next... Our Intrepid Travellers Arrive at WDW!

[ 03-02-2002, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: LLaffinPlace ]