Episode #39: A Tornado Keeps Me In Washington D.C. A Day Longer

In June of 2008 I was still working for Redi~Mix Concrete and I had been tasked with evaluating a Plant Manager training program developed by the National Ready Mix Concrete Association located in Silver Spring Maryland which is just a few miles north of Washington D.C. and I decided the best way to do this was to fly there and take this week long training class myself and report my assessment and recommendation to management. 

During my trip to New Zealand a few years earlier (see Episode #16) I made a lot friends from all over the country that I stayed in touch with for several years. One of those was a lady named Helga who also lived in Silver Spring. This four day training class was conducted Tuesday through Friday, and since I had never been to D.C. and Helga lived there, I knew she would make an ideal tour guide. When the time came I flew into BWI (Baltimore Washington International) on Saturday so I could have a couple of free days to do some sightseeing. Helga suggested I stay at her house and since she had a live in boy friend I was ok with staying with them during the free days I had before the class started.

They were off Saturday and Sunday and showed me around the area taking me to a few of the  non traditional sites as well as some historic must see tourist locations and afternoon we took a really nice day hike along a river just outside of D. C. They went back to work on Monday, but furnished me a list of places, locations and directions for a full day of sight seeing and would pick me up each evening for supper at a favorite restaurant of theirs each evening. 

When the training classes start on Tuesday, they last the entire day for the remainder of the week plus there is homework to complete each evening, so I found a B&B that is much closer to the training venue and was only a few blocks away and could walk to the facility. As you can imagine with the amount of people that commute from the surrounding areas into D.C. for work is phenomenal and gridlock is an understatement. However, since they both work in D.C. we meet for supper each evening before they go home in Silver Spring.

The training class concluded at 3pm on Friday so participants can catch flights back home that afternoon or early evening so I prepare to head to BWI for a 7:15 pm departure. As I am heading to the rent car return and just enjoying the scenery not really paying attention to where I am going. Back in the day, before we all got dependent on our smart phones for navigation, I had a Palm Pilot and had the destination programmed to Hertz Rental Car and was following the route it had created for this trip. 

When I entered the destination, I thought it would take me to my most recent visit to that location since I was there less than a week ago but I did not realize is my 'digital assistant' had completely discharged over the past few days due to lack of use of the rent car. As it turns out the GPS created a route to the main Hertz facility in Baltimore. As I was driving past the airport exits I just thought I was being routed to the far side of the airport and didn't think too much about it until I topped a hill that was heading me directly into downtown Baltimore. As soon as I could find a safe place I pull over and stop. I looked at the Palm Pilot closely and note the address then looked at my rental receipt and compared the addresses and noticed my mistake and  had to reprogram my destination. By this time traffic was getting very heavy and beginning to slow down. My time cushion was beginning to evaporate and still have time to get there, but not much to spare now.

After returning the car and waiting for the shuttle to the terminal I call Helga to thank her for the hospitality she and Chris had extended to me that week. With a summer storm building and getting worse by the minute, she said if anything changes with my flight to call her. I get to the terminal and check in for my flight to find out this storm is producing multiple tornados in the area. Both BWI and Dulles airports are now shut down and all flights are cancelled. I have my baggage, no flight, no car and no hotel room for the night. I call Helga and do not get an answer so I leave a message to let her know what has transpired. I am prepared now to sleep in the airport and catch the first available flight to DFW in the morning and suddenly my phone rings. I do not know the number but I do recognize the area code as being local. I take the call and it is Chris telling me he is about 5 minutes away from the terminal.

He arrives a few minutes later, I pitch my luggage in the trunk and we head back to Silver Spring. As it turns out when I had called Helga, she was on the phone with another friend of hers that was in the same situation I was with a cancelled flight and she was coordinating a place to pick him up at Dulles airport. As we leave the airport terminal Chris tells me that since it was so late, Helga was stopping for some take out supper for everyone. He says I hope you like Chinese as she was stopping at her favorite Chinese restaurant. I said sure, I appreciate it, but that is absolutely my least 'favorite' cuisine.  

As we pull into her neighborhood it is now almost 10pm and we see the power is out for many blocks around. When we walk into the house we are drenched from the on-going storm, Helga has her table set with candles to eat Chinese. The other guy who was there had met Helga when they were both in the Peace Corp in Guyana several years earlier. As we sat together eating and visiting it occurred to me the three of us guys were in such an unlikely place with two of us only knowing Helga from meeting her in Guyana and New Zealand. 

It was an interesting visit with a very memorable ending to my first visit to Washington D.C. As it turns out the Chinese was not really all that bad considering the circumstances and we mad the very best of this strange turn of events. I left the next morning for the airport by cab as Chris and Helga were heading out to work. The other guy? I don't remember.

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