Apparently lightning does strike twice. Are the stars out of alignment? Do I have some bad karma? Why can’t I complete my trips without some crazy delay? Last time was Accra, now I’m stuck in New York. I have time, so here’s the ridiculous story. After a long 12 hour flight from Accra to JFK, my plane is delayed on the taxiway. Apparently we arrived at JFK 15 minutes late, so our gate was occupied by another flight. How can you be 15 minutes late in a jet that can fly over 500 mph? I don’t know either. So the plane spent about 30 minutes sitting on the ground. I thought: no worries, I still have 2.5 hours to get to LaGuardia for my flight to Dallas. Well, I had to wait to be cleared through customs and immigration. Next I had to wait to pick up my luggage. Finally, I had to wait on the shuttle to LGA. Well, I arrive at LGA 30 minutes before my flight. This was cutting it close, but I still had time. There are only 4 people on the shuttle, all flying on Delta; yet, the driver spends a good 2 minutes at a few other carriers’ gates. Finally, the fourth rider admits that he doesn’t have a ticket but wants to visit Detroit, so we waste another 5 minutes dealing with him. I arrive at the check-in counter with 15 minutes to spare, but they can’t check my luggage! The boarding gate is calling my name on the intercom, but I can’t board. Total disaster! So, here I am in some expensive (apparently $100 is cheap) hotel writing this up because I can’t sleep. Just like last night, everytime I fall asleep, all I can think about is missing another flight! When I wake up, no time has passed, so I’m stuck consciously thinking about missing another flight. I am ready for this to be over. Hopefully my life will return to some form of normalcy when I return to Dallas later this morning. Of course, being unable to sit still, I’ll be rushing to a dentist’s appointment at noon. So, I get the pain of having been stuck twice on my trip and the pain of (possibly) having my wisdom teeth removed. On another note, here are my last videos. The Castle Elmina videos, like many of the photos really aren’t that great. Castle Elmina truly something that you have to physically interact with to appreciate its significance. The thousand words of a picture don’t even come close to describing the experience.
