This Weather

Many states in the United States are currently dealing with the Polar Vortex. From my understanding, it is always around, but this is the first time in 20 years that it’s gone so south and stalled. We are experiencing record lows that have not been felt in 20 years which was my first year in college. I am surprised I don’t remember that because I went to a community college and would ride public transportation to and from school. I would have to walk several blocks to catch the bus home even though I could ride a bus down there, but I decided to be healthy most of the time by walking. I don’t remember it getting that cold, or I just forgot.

However, I remember coming home from Walt Disney World in January 1996. I had been down there for the College Program.

Disclaimer:  Cell phones and the Internet were not as readily available as they are now. In fact, I did not use the Internet until the summer of 1997 and did not own my first cell phone until my first year of teaching (2000-2001 school year).   Even then, I rarely carried it around.

This day reminds me of the day I came home from my Disney internship 18 years ago. (We have record-breaking cold weather. The forecast had been 8 to 12 inches of snow, and we only got 1.5 inches of snow.)

I had talked to my mom before leaving for the airport. She told me that it was cold and snowy. It was 80 degrees in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and I wore shorts during that phone call.

Later that morning, I got onto the plane (no longer in shorts) and never heard about the connecting flight from Atlanta to Dayton. Another person who had done the internship and I had taken the same flight home. We took time calling our family in the Dayton area. (I had to use the pay phone) The other person waited in line to find out information about our delay. We knew more from our family than we did from the Atlanta airport.

We finally did take off almost 11 hours after we were supposed to take off. (11ish at night). When we landed in Ohio, we were greeted with 8 inches of snow on the ground (I looked it up today). I put on layers because I had no winter coat with me. We then hunkered down in the baggage claim area, which was freezing because of the exterior flaps. One baggage claim carousals had some diet Pepsi and peanuts come through, so that was our middle-of-the-night snack. I had no pillow but did have a big Pumbaa stuffed animal. That ended up being my pillow. (It was about 2 am at this point.)

Between 6 and 7 am, we found one cab driver willing to drive me home. Even though the other young man lived close to the airport, he rode with me to ensure I got home safely.

I could not find the spare key outside the house, and everyone was asleep. Luckily my grandma woke up to go to the bathroom. She heard me outside and let me in. (No cell phone because cell phones were nothing like we have today.) Even though they wanted to celebrate Christmas since I was in Disney on Christmas Day, I told them I was ready to sleep.

When I got up, we had to go to Walmart because I had left all my personal hygiene goodies in my apartment in Lake Buena Vista, and my glasses had broken right before I left.

Oh, this was a Sunday into Monday ordeal . . . And we were only supposed to get 2-3 inches of snow that Sunday. (The dates were January 7 into the 8th).

Four years later, I traveled down there with Hubby. It was our honeymoon a year after we had married. On the way home, we got stuck in Newark, New Jersey. They had a plane for us, but suddenly, there was no plane. We spent the night in the Newark, New Jersey, airport. The next 2 times we traveled to Walt Disney World were by car, and when we went in March, we were once again driving.