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On The Road Again

By James R. Hood

September 14, 2001

• 9/11: Five Years Later, A Survivor Remembers • 9/11 Losses Reach $9.3 Billion • Pets Rescued Faster Than Elderly After 9/11 • "Freedom Coin" Suit Progresses • Traveling After 9/11 • Red Cross Will Spend 9/11 Donations on 9/11 Victims • On the Road Again: Grounded After 9/11

The nationwide shutdown of the nation's airways left thousands of travelers stranded many miles from home. It was an inconvenience for most, in no way comparable to the tragic losses suffered by the families whose loved ones died or were injured in the East Coast terror attacks.

Nevertheless, the uncertainty combined with family and business pressures began to mount after a few days, leaving thousands of travelers, including this one, to take matters into their own hands.

I had left late Sunday for a quick two-day trip to Los Angeles, expecting to be back home late Tuesday, so I passed up long-term parking and zipped confidently into the daily garage at Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI). First mistake.

On Tuesday, meetings over and the world falling apart, my thoughts turned quickly to home. Associates and friends work in lower Manhattan and others are New York-based airline employees. Neighbors are senior military officers, based at the Pentagon.

The first call from home is not encouraging. Smoke from the Pentagon inferno is drifting over our Northern Virginia home. Both children report that friends' fathers are missing or injured. At least one is known dead.

The word Tuesday is that commercial air travel will resume Wednesday. This sounds good to me. Drifting off to sleep Tuesday night, I see my brother-in-law, Msgr. Jim Lisante, on Fox News, defending religion's ability to provide solace and comfort in times of great sorrow. A commentator asks the question that's as old as humanity: How can God let this happen? There is good and evil in the world, Father Jim replies. Sometimes evil wins.

First thing Wednesday morning I am rolling down Lincoln Blvd. towards LAX, only to find the street closed. Detour to Sepulveda. Same result. Obviously, LAX is not open after all.

I maneuver to Dollar Rent-A-Car, where I turn in my L.A. car and hitch a ride with someone heading to Phoenix. We're barely outside L.A. County when my AT&T Wireless phone declares itself to be alternately roaming and on "extended service." This means no one can call me, I later learn as I listen to some increasingly snippy voice mail.

At a rest stop in the desert a sign erected by CalTrans warns of "possible bee activity." It cites no examples.

Some Help, Some Don't

A few hours later in Phoenix, I walk into an eerily-deserted Sky Harbor International Airport and start canvassing the rental counters, looking for an affordable car I can drop off in Baltimore or Washington. Hertz wants about $350 a day. Dollar, astonishingly, wants a $750 drop charge plus the usual daily rate.

At Avis, my luck improves. The agent asks me a few questions, then tells me her CEO has decreed that Avis will do all it can to help stranded travelers. She quotes me a daily rate of $110 with a drop at BWI or anyplace en route. I gratefully accept.

A few minutes later, I am headed out of the airport in a comfortable new Toyota Camry, turning onto I-10 East. Having lived in Arizona a few decades ago, I'm confident I don't need a map. Second mistake. Later I realize that I-10 has taken me hundreds of miles out of my way, skirting the Mexican border. I should have headed north towards I-40.

I spend the first night in Deming, New Mexico at a Holiday Inn. The price is $49. The desk clerks are barely civil and seem to despise their guests but the restaurant staff is friendly and efficient. The dining room is full of other refugees, including two older women on their way to a funeral in Chicago. One family struggles to entertain a one-year-old. They had expected a three-hour plane flight, not a three-day car trip with a restless infant but the father seems to be enjoying the unexpected family time. The mom's not so sure.

At an adobe-style rest stop somewhere in Southern New Mexico, a sign warns: "Watch for snakes." Billboards along I-25 are hawking bullwhips and bullhorns. Not a good place to be a bull, I guess.

Rolling along the next day, I'm reminded of several truths known to all travelers:

• New Mexico and Texas are a lot like the military. Once you're in, it's hard to get out.
• McDonald's has the best coffee.
• Truck stops have the best service, the worst food and the friendliest customers.
• Local radio leaves much to be desired.

Out on the highways, I notice an abundance of California rental cars driven mostly by single males, zipping east.

The second night on the road, finally back to I-40, I stop at the Holiday Inn in Elk City, Oklahoma. At $75 a night, it turns out to be a gem, with spacious rooms, comfortable furniture and bright reading lights (a real rarity). There's a Holidome without the usual chlorine smell and a friendly but overworked restaurant.

The big-city newspapers report that hotels are empty because of all the travelers who've failed to show up. They're looking at the wrong hotels, I think. The roadside motels that line the Interstates are packed with displaced air travelers. At the table next to me, a couple heading for New York is arguing whether they'll be home in time to pick up the dogs before the kennel closes at noon Saturday. Doesn't seem likely.

Two more older ladies are traveling to a family event, this time in the opposite direction, from Chicago to Los Angeles.

After a dinner mysteriously covered in milk gravy, I log onto the Internet and find that the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, about two hours east, has met the new FAA security regs and will be open the next morning. A quick visit to Southwest.com and I have snagged a seat on a 1:30 p.m. flight to BWI, arriving around 10 p.m. OK, it makes two stops but it's faster than driving. I buy a one-way ticket for $230 and once again remind myself what a gift to travelers Southwest is. No other airline would think of selling a one-way ticket for use the very next day for anything short of $1,000.

I call home and learn that daughter Marisa and friends opened a flag-draped neighborhood lemonade stand and took in $1,100 for the American Red Cross.

By 9:30 Friday morning, I'm pulling into the Avis drop-off area, checking in the car and heading into the deserted terminal. I hear footsteps coming up fast and look warily behind me, ready to try out some of those painfully-learned tae kwon do moves. But it's the young woman from the Avis check-in.

"Sir, sir, you left your sunglasses," she smiles, handing me the $5 specials I had left in one of the Camry's many cupholders. I thank her profusely. Would this happen anywhere outside Oklahoma? Not likely.

At the Southwest counter, one agent apologetically interrogates me while another pulls on rubber gloves to examine my laundry and toothpaste.

"Really appreciate your getting here early sir, it's going to be a long day," he tells me. "Everything check out OK there, honey?" he asks the other agent, who says my socks appear harmless. I'm surprised at his language and hope the other agent doesn't slap a sexual harrassment suit on him.

"She's my wife," he explains, sheepishly. After days of watching buildings and lives crumble, this last touch of downhome Oklahoma strikes a chord and I'm unable to resist reaching out for the agent's hand as I turn to leave. "God bless you, sir," he offers.

Sounds good to me.

The flight home is best described as eerie. While changing planes in St. Louis, a huge window in the terminal shatters, setting off a brief wave of panic. In Chicago, we're delayed by unspecified "FBI activity." On one leg I seem to be the only revenue passenger. Everyone else is a dead-heading crew member, as Southwest and the other airlines struggle to get their choreography back in sync.

Upon arrival, the BWI airport bureaucracy extends an unexpected gesture. Although my ancient Peugeot has perched there five nights since Sunday, I'm charged for only two days. And on the way home, my radio -- which has not worked for months -- suddenly revives and I hear the last few minutes of a prayer service conducted earlier in the day at National Cathedral.

Father Jim is right. There is both good and evil in the world. Sometimes evil wins. But not always.

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