It sure is frustrating to have to sleep in the airport. My friends had joined us for a trip to WDW in December, 2004, the week before Christmas. I originally was on call the Christmas weekend, and so, we were originally scheduled to leave December 23. Fortunately, one of the other doctors traded with me, and were we ever lucky he did. There was a terrible snowstorm in the midwest Dec 23. My friends were flying into Columbus, Ohio, and had to sleep overnight in the Charlotte, NC airport, because no planes were landing in Columbus. When they finally got to Columbus, they had to dig their car out of two feet of ice and snow. Her teenaged son had worn shorts on the plane, and his only long pants were in checked bags. Imagine being outside in subzero weather shoveling snow in shorts. When she told me her horror story, I felt guilty, because I had planned the trip and treated them to staying at SSR with us.
We came home the day after Christmas, after visiting my brother in Ft. Myers for Christmas day. Our plane wasn't delayed, but, the car was still buried under two feet of snow and ice--almost got stuck in a drift on the way out of the parking lot. We had closer to three feet at home--people had actually been stranded for over 24hrs in their cars on the interstate not far from where we live. Our jewel of a good neighbor had used his snowblower to clear a path to our garage door wide enough for our car.
My office was actually closed from Dec 23-26, but, it wouldn't have worked at all for me to have been stranded in the airport and on call, had I not traded call for that weekend--could have been worse.
This was also the time when USAir stranded all the luggage at the airport--there were loads of luggage by baggage claim that apparently either was misdirected or on the wrong flight. What a horrible mess.
