I had an early morning show time, but my consolation was that it was an easy leg back to Houston where I would sit for a few hours on "ready reserve" and hopefully go back to my sister's house and relax. Of course, that was not to be. I was trying to be proactive and pull up a flight release on my phone before we got in the hotel shuttle, and quickly discovered that I'd been preassigned another 6 legs over the next 3 days. So with a suitcase filled with short sleeved shirts and board shorts, I discovered I would be flying a leg up to Cleveland. º_º
On account of assuming that I would be relaxing the rest of the day, a 2.5 hour flight to Cleveland wasn't terribly appealing to me. One can never assume anything when working for the airlines, though. Lesson learned. As I sat in the cockpit setting up the flight computer for Cleveland, the trip grew on me. At least I would be busy for the next couple days and punch my ticket home without having to worry whether or not I was going to be called at 4am. The weather in Cleveland was ominous and shortly after landing it began to rain. Once again our hotel was close to nothing. Fortunately, I have a cousin and his family who live in the area.
They said they didn't get many visitors to Cleveland and I think they enjoyed the excuse to go out to a place called Danny Boy's Pizza where I was subtly encouraged to order the "Clevelander," a hybrid Chicago deep-dish pepperoni and sauce extravaganza. It was nice to get out of the hotel for a minute and talk to non flight crew folks.
I had sporadically checked throughout the afternoon to see if people were getting awarded any base transfers. I felt like a hero this last week for the airline. For one call last week, I got to the airport in 35 mins instead of two hours and enabled a flight to depart on time against all odds. Two days later, I agreed to take a standup to Brownsville, Texas when nobody was available. And not that I had a choice this morning, but I didn't call to protest that I didn't have any winter garments for the flights they had assigned me. So in the back of my head, I kept thinking, I have earned the right to get based back home, and at 8:30pm I received an email indicating that my hard work appears to have paid off. Starting May 1, I will finally work where I live. It's time to come home.
