Heaven Sent

A series of heaven sent occurrences and people crossed my path today.

Before I talk about my day today I want to start by saying, I FOUND MY PHONE CASE. It was a new case, it was lost, I really wanted to have it for the trip, and about an hour ago it resurfaced. I’m elated.

Photo Credit: Me

One more thing before I launch into the Kansas related palavering. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to someone important. This is one of my best friends at Putney Zen Gen. She is heaven sent. Zen Gen just sent me a text telling me she will miss me but she wishes me luck on my journey to Kansas. Gen took time out of her break to remember what day I was leaving and where I was going. That in and of itself is a great feat.

Zen Gen 

Photo Credit: facepage.putneyschool.org

Gen is one of the happiest kindest gentlest most vegetarian people in the world. She is pure of mind and pure of heart and sends me self-esteem boosting text messages and she used to wear knee socks a lot. She is a tour guide at Putney, incredibly sociable, but would never gossip or curse ever. Even if you had a gun to her head. Gen will always be there to tell you how great you are, or how happy she is, or how tofu really does taste good no matter what your tongue is telling you. She wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she had peach pie for the first time on September 26^th 2013, she’s on the rowing team, she’s an amazing athlete, she runs marathons, she’s about to get her kneecaps removed, she has psychic abilities with small children, and when she eats apples she eats the entire thing including the core which is incredibly bad-ass. Everyone should know what a great person Gen is, and spreading the word about it starts right here right now.

Gen is a good person and a great friend!

Anyways…

My day today started out fantastic. It was my last full day in Rhode Island, I had a friend over we made pizza, I was all packed and ready to leave tomorrow at 3:00 in the morning to go to Logan Airport to board my plane to Denver, and then make a connection in Denver to Kansas. I’m all happy-go-lucky hunkey dory peaches and cream.  We decided we should go out and pick up all the last minute things I might need (extra mittens, phone chargers etc.) But before we did that, my mother decided I should check in online for my flight first. I’m flying United Airlines, “United together as a force against humanity.” We logged onto the website and filled out the information and clicked “submit.” An error message popped up saying that United “Didn’t find a valid ticket coupon under this information.” Our first thought was there was an issue when we rebooked the tickets (we had to cancel our first reservation and re-do it because someone at United spelled my name wrong and printed the wrong name on my boarding pass and wouldn't change the tickets unless we canceled it and bought new ones.) But after my father waited an hour on hold, we learned this was not the case, that in fact United’s website was completely malfunctioning and the error message was completely irrelevant. I checked in over the phone, and continued back down the path to happiness (aka I drove to Target®.)

Photo Credit: Target.com

We arrived at Target®, the one stop shop for everything you need, to pick up extra shampoo and stuff. We wandered around the store browsing and checking our list, when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was my Dad. “You want the good news or the bad news?” He asked. I was not concerned at first, as usually whenever he acts all dramatic about something it means nothing has actually happened. “Bad news.” I said, tentatively. “Your flight out of Denver was just cancelled.” I stopped dead in my tracks, almost allowing my shopping cart to smash into a group of small children. I told myself he must be joking. “No, really, what’s the news?” He sighed. “Your flight out of Denver has really been cancelled.”

Photo Credit: Travelinsurancereview.net

We left the store immediately. We were on hold with United and Frontier and Great Lakes airlines all at once, we called people all the way home. My father left a meeting, my mother was glued to her computer screen, I kicked out the friend I had over, we were firing on all cylinders. To make a long story short here’s what we tried here’s why it didn’t work.

-Flight out on Monday—I would have had to make two connections, one of which was on a propeller plane out of an airport in a bad area that had a 50% chance of being cancelled.

-Flight out on Tuesday—They were all sold out.

-Flight to Hays from somewhere not Denver—There weren’t any other airports that had a flight to Hays Kansas, and all the flights on Frontier/Great Lakes Airlines (the only airlines that fly to Hays) were cancelled anyways.

-Flight on Wednesday—All sold out.

-Fly to Denver and take a car service to Kansas (4 ½ hour drive)—My Dad would not in a million years let me sit in a car for 4 hours alone with some strange man he’s never met before.

-Have my Mother fly with me to Denver and drive me the rest of the way to Quinter and then drive back and fly back—Not only would that have been a major inconvenience for her, but that didn’t even matter because my flight to Denver is completely sold out so she couldn’t get on it anyways.

-Call everyone we know in Denver asking if they or someone they trust wanted to make some extra money by driving me to Kansas (because then at least we would know in advance who was driving me and that they didn’t have any ill intent.)—No one knew of anyone, accept one person, who was busy.

-Call my host family in Quinter and ask if anyone they knew and trusted in Quinter wanted to make some extra money by picking me up in Denver—They obviously couldn’t think of anyone who wanted to wake up at 6:00AM and drive to Denver for 8 hours.

It actually got so bad with United that they wouldn't even let you be on hold. If you called they instructed you to hang up and call back later, and then they automatically hung up on you. We were completely hopeless. I thought I might have to call off the trip all together, I was panicked, I was heartbroken, I was hopeless.

"Panicked, heartbroken, hopeless."

Until…

Terra, the mother of my host family, called and said she and her daughter Caitlyn would wake up at 6:00 in the morning and drive the EIGHT HOURS just to pick me up.

I know people talk often of how hospitable the mid-west is, but this goes far beyond. Caitlyn and Terra and my host family are literally heaven sent saints. I haven’t thought of a way to repay them yet, but I figured the best place to start was to call attention to how helpful and selfless and kind they are.

This is the biggest image I could find of the family. Take out your magnifying glass...

Photo Credit: Pinterest.com

I’m all packed, I have to wake up to go to Logan in 2 and ½ hours, I couldn’t be more excited and I’ll keep you "posted." :)

Peace, love, and a winning attitude,

--Amelia

Photo Credit: Pastiche.squidoo.com