it's that time again - holiday travel horror stories

Parent Cafe
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<p>D1 was supposed to leave Syracuse to drive to D2’s school in Pennsylvania today. Was going to stay the night there, and get an early start for home tomorrow, and drive straight through. Anyone who has heard about the N’eastern knows that didn’t happen. She’s hoping to get to her sister tomorrow, then leave for home, and probably have to pull off somewhere for a hotel room (remember my thread about that?) and finish the drive home on Saturday. Both girls are extremely disappointed they are delayed by a day… oh, well, they must be safe.</p>

<p>D1 also alluded that many of her friends from Syracuse who were supposed to leave today (either driving or flying) were postponed. I assume this has affected the entire Northeast, and all its college students who are looking to get home. At least for those who have several weeks off, arriving home one day later won’t matter that much, as it does at Thanksgiving</p>

<p>Then there’s the southern end of the Plains states… yikes!</p>

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<p>Holiday travel? How about commuting? My h’s commute home usually is about 40 minutes, and he knows all the back roads to get around traffic. Yesterday? Six and half hours to get home! And don’t get me started on our wonderful public transportation system . . . rant, rant. And then we had to turn around and go back this morning!</p>

<p>My d doesn’t come home until next weekend; with any luck, there won’t be another similar storm!</p>

<p>Hope the rest of your ds’ trip is uneventful!</p>

3

<p>Yeah, upstate New York is a mess.</p>

<p>My daughter is supposed to leave Cornell late this afternoon on a charter bus to Maryland. I give it a 50:50 chance that this will actually happen. And if it doesn’t, she’s going to have a long wait since another storm is coming tomorrow (and this one will impact her whole route, including her destination).</p>

<p>To further complicate things, the Cornell dorms close at 2 PM tomorrow. The university is making arrangements to put all the stranded kids in some building temporarily, but it sounds very makeshift and uncomfortable.</p>

<p>The only saving grace is that she and a friend were planning to come home on the same bus and intend to stay together regardless of what happens. If they end up having to make new travel arrangements and have to wait for long periods of time in an airport or bus station somewhere, at least there will be one person to guard the luggage while the other buys food/goes to the bathroom/sleeps/whatever.</p>

<p>I can’t wait until she moves off-campus. If she lived off-campus, she could simply stay in her apartment until she could make convenient alternate travel arrangements.</p>

4

<p>We’re planning to fetch a child from Illinois sometime this weekend. He’s in an apt. so is flexible on the timing, but the forecast is for anywhere from 1" to 6" in our area, or possibly the dreaded “wintry mix.” </p>

<p>Here in the Ohio River Valley, if you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.</p>

<p>At DH’s office holiday party, held at a very nice place, one out-of-towner showed up in a nice top and…blue jeans! Lost luggage. :(</p>

5

<p>yea, we’re supposed to get it again in the Chicago area this weekend, so be careful mommusic. </p>

<p>Marian, regarding upstate NY… D1 made an easy, successful drive from Syracuse to Allentown today, and D1 and D2 are probably in Ohio right now, so things may appear brighter than they seem.</p>

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<p>Yes, teriwtt, you’re right. I got a call from my daughter an hour ago, saying that she is on the bus.</p>

<p>I hope that the upstate NY students whose flights were cancelled yesterday will be able to get flights today before the next storm comes in tomorrow.</p>

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<p>I have experienced more than my share of unpleasnt holiday trips from NJ to MA. A Couple of yrs ago, we started our trip with our dog, youngest daughter and a Christmas kitten on the 26th of Dec.
There happened to be a snowstorm in the path. We traveled in our aging motor home , as our families usually have a hard time hosuing our entire crew ( animals and all )
We made it to the middle of CT, and after seeing a lot of over-confident SUV drivers in the woods and ditched of I95, decided to take shelter in a Walmart parking lot for the evening.
Excellent hosts in a storm, I might add.
We woke up the next morning, called our family members to figure out whether to continue or head home. It was the winter where the snowstorms were frequent and heavy.
We decided to continue and were glad we did.
I hope that this yr is a little more forgiving…or I will not get into the drive</p>

8

<p>I drove my D to Iowa this fall in our designated “kid car”, a Ford Focus, and flew home. I had planned to fly back to IA this next Thursday to return by car. (Four weeks of holiday break might not be so jolly with four drivers and two cars.) After much consideration and a little bit of tension, we decided to fly D home and share the cars. We’ve driven between MA and IA many times over the past 14 years and decided that a storm like yesterday’s in the Ford Focus would have been an absolute nightmare!</p>

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<p>My secrets:</p>

<ol>
<li>Have your child go to school in a place with little weather.</li>
<li>Live where it rarely snows.</li>
<li>Have a low-cost airline that flies non-stop between the two.</li>
</ol>

<p>WashDadJr’s flight landed early today. Happy travel to all you other CCers.</p>

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<p>I hope some parents with seniors filling out applications take WashDad’s advice. </p>

<p>We actually knocked some schools off of son’s ‘long list’ due to difficult travel logistics. (Thankfully, S. didn’t look at schools with inclement weather patterns.)</p>

<p>Safe travels to the homebound!</p>

11

<p>I am lucky with our kids’ choices for undergrad…Louisiana and Texas.
However, D was just accepted for grad school in CHICAGO, and has applied to one in New York and in Colorado. Think we may be in for some travel “horror stories” of our own :)</p>

<p>I’m enjoying easy times while they last…
Safe journeys to all who are moving about.</p>

12

<p>WashDad’s list is good advice, it worked very nicely w/D1. D2, not so much.</p>

<p>Holiday travel can be stressful. I hope that you all have happy and safe holidays.</p>

13

<p>New Yorkers, the traffic is the worst in VA today. My son has been on a bus for nearly 7 hours and he is only one hour from where he started. He is still in VA, when he should be home right now! What was/is going on 81, and Route 11 (not familiar with that road)?</p>

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<p>While this may not apply to northeastmom’s son, my daughter’s said there was a bad accident on I-80 around the State College exit, they had to detour traffic off of the interstate onto roads that my daughter’s GPS didn’t even acknowledge (and the GPS is only 6 months old).</p>

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<p>WashDad, you have good advice.
I’d add: Have your kid go to school some place with direct and frequent flights to your home airport. Second. don’t count on family near the school to fill in as parent in your kid’s travel plans - it’s not their kid. Thirdly, do not be fooled by the fact that nearby cities have picked up on airport names and think that public transport is getting them to the airport when it is only getting them to the city.</p>

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<p>Speaking of weather, I’ve got a freshman flying home from So.California (67 degrees) to Buffalo (6 inches of snow). Am planning to meet him with a blanket and hot chocolate. All we can do up here is try to be charming, because basically this weather is ridiculous.</p>

<p>D wants to come home from PRovidence next week to see him, so we have been on bus, train and plane schedules tonight seeing what we can pull together with a last-minute request. She has work schedule issues. </p>

<p>He just called quite happy, with a friend driving him to Orange (“John Wayne” Santa Ana) Airport, feeling great. Haven’t seen each other since August. He’ll stay “around” here for 5 weeks, with side-travel to relatives in other cities, too. I can hear the relief, joy and pride in his voice that he completed his first term. I keep telling his dog, “you’re gonna be really happy soon.” </p>

<p>His ticket routes him through two warm-weather airports, Las Vegas and Charlotte NC, rather than one Northern airport, given the time of year. We’ll reassess whether to return that way in late January or gamble with the 1-stop layover in a Northern airport. I realize the Charlotte NC airport could be impacted in numerous ways, too, but since he gets there at 6 a.m. at least he’ll eventually get home Saturday even if there are delays, I hopehopehope. </p>

<p>Good thing because he’s already set up a great day with some friends. We’re on his schedule for 9 p.m.-midnight tomorrow with g.f. in tow. Proud to be on his dance card. </p>

<p>I have only the most heartfelt empathy for everyone dealing with the Noreaster stormy mess, affecting so many travellers. Just keep remembering that safe travel, not arrival dates, counts the most. They are young and resourceful, if not experienced. H and I got stuck in JFK airport one year and another couple, strange to us, became close friends. Now she tells everyone she “spent the night with my H.” </p>

<p>Ha. Ha. Not. Funny.</p>

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<p>northeastmom – where in VA is he? VA has had a terrible fog problem for much of the day today, so traffic is incredibly slow; you couldn’t see more than 1-2 ft in front of your car earlier today.</p>

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<p>I keep telling his dog, “you’re gonna be really happy soon.”
Aren’t dogs great? :D</p>

<p>Even though D doesn’t even live here anymore and maybe visits for a week or two total all year- whenever she comes home, our dog is like * ohhhh …yeah! I * THOUGHT* there was another girl*:::::::thump thump thump::::</p>

<p>Her cat on the other hand( may she rest in piece) would be p-oed, when D came home for the summer ,her cat pouted on the neighbors porch up the street for a month.</p>

<p>But yes- some places have more weather than others.
Im a little worried that they are expecting many more hurricanes this year.
Im grateful that older D at least is on this coast - it was nice to have her just a train ride away, even if sometimes the train was so slow I could have driven down and back before the train got here.( one year when the train was 10 hours late because of snow in Ca mt passes)</p>

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<p>Sorry aj725, I did not see your post because I decided to go to sleep and set an alarm for midnight. I just got a call from my son that he just got into NJ. I am leaving now to pick him up. He was leaving from Harrisonburg. What should have been a 6 hour ride, has turned out to take nearly 12 hours. At least he was on a private coach, but what a miserable trip.</p>

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<p>my girls made it! And yes, they’re still speaking to each other after 770 miles together. And yes, my dog is very happy right now!</p>

<p>Good luck to everyone else.</p>