Lesson Learned

Some lessons cost money, some cost time, some cause stress and some can effect more than one area of your life.  For some reason early this morning our cat, Dinozo, kept waking me up so at 6:30am CST, I got up and called Caley.  She was supposed to get on a bus at 6:30am EST to make it to Jacksonville, FL in order to fly home to Tulsa, OK.  When I spoke to her last night she told me that the plan was to stay up all night long so she would not miss the bus, that didn’t happen.  She was in or dorm and my phone call woke her up so then we had to work on options plan A, B and C.  Will started checking the bus ticket and the plane ticket times.

The original plan was for her to take a Greyhound bus to Jacksonville, FL where she was scheduled to leave on the plane 11:30am.  Since she missed the bus and now she was 2 hours away from the airport by car and the only flight out from Jacksonville to Tulsa was that morning flight.  Option A -Find someone to take her to Jacksonville this morning (car – find someone, Uber – $300-$400, bus – booked or not in time); Option B – Get her to Jacksonville, move the flight to tomorrow and she will need to stay in an Airbnb for a night.  Will cost money; Option C – Get her to Atlanta and she could take a later flight today.  Will cost more money.  Any way we look at this, money seems to be involved.

So at 6:30am I start messaging friends, posting on Facebook groups and trying to figure out how to get Caley to Jacksonville and I only had 1 hour to do it in.  Talk about stress, I was 15 hours by car away and could do nothing physically so I worked my contacts.  Caley posted on her group pages, snap chatted friends and anything she could think of to find a ride while I was working on things as well.  I found a SCAD parent that could give her a ride to Jacksonville, but she would not make it before the flight, so that became Option B.  I went through my contacts and texted people that I know in Savannah.  Since I have been there several times and work with a Keller Williams Office there, I reached out to some people I met.  I also posted in the office website and on the SCAD parent page.  Just when time was about to run out someone came through for us!

Sleepy Caley

Joe Dyer, a REALTOR® friend that I met at the KW office, who now owns his own brokerage company called Service Fist Real Estate Associates.  I had asked if he knew someone that could take her and he offered to take her himself!!  I was so excited we were about to go with the Option A!!  If you need any real estate help in Savannah, GA, please call Joe!  He headed over to her dorm, picked her up and they were on their way.  I also made sure she bought his gas and their breakfast.  He sent me a picture of her asleep in the car, obviously she didn’t get enough sleep trying to stay up all night.

Since we got that crisis taken care of, Will and I went back to sleep for a few hours.  We woke up just in time to make sure she made it through security and on the plane.  They arrived at the Jacksonville airport at about 11am and she had to get through security and book it to the gate!  The plane was running a little behind and that was good in this case.  She had plenty of time between flights with a 3 hour layover.  The second flight didn’t leave until 4:20pm CST from Houston.

I had a few errands around town to take care of for Senior Celebration and other things before it was time to get Caley.  She didn’t eat much on her trip but she did manage to go to Starbucks and so Will and I took her to PF Chang’s to dinner when she arrived in Tulsa.  It was nice to sit and visit and we all put our phones down and just enjoyed each others’ conversation!

Of course when we picked up Caley at the airport dad wanted to make sure she understood what missing her bus meant.  Things could have been a lot worse and it could have cost us quite a bit of time and money.  She was already feeling bad and if Joe had not been able to take her to where she needed to go last minute it could have been bad.  I’m very happy to report that Caley made it home safe and sound and we are looking forward to spending her winter break with her.  Thank you, thank you, thank you JOE!!