Southern Sunshine
A year since where I left off, it is about time I catch up a bit.
Before leaving North Carolina, Tracey and I manage a micro-demonstration at the Chik-Fil-A in Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. I had been communicating with Corporate Accountability since the Resource Generation retreat in Philly about my work against animal & fast food. They sent me a list of animal fast food restaurants in hospitals throughout the country. Seeing one in nearby Charlotte, we demonstrate, and manage some conversations before being escorted out. This is the first time it has happened. No controversy.
South Carolina
Tracey and I leave North Carolina as planned, and visit a friend from YEA Camp in Columbia, where I knock over her community-issued mailbox. She takes it better than I (and her neighbors) do. We spend two days catching up and lamenting the election before we leave to volunteer for a couple animal sanctuaries Tracey organized beforehand. We are particularly moved by SC-CARES, whose, well, care really shines through from their director and staff. We have material enough for more videos, but this is our intro about them. See for yourself:
While staying in Charleston, at the home of another vegan sanctuary friend, a very special poster order comes in:
We bring pumpkin chili to a Friendsgiving vegan potluck in Savannah, and crash at the home of one of the fellow veg folk there (#VeganMafia). We walk around Savanna the next day, which is nice, but cold enough to convince us to leave for Florida.
Florida
With the above posters on our truck (there are two), we get some looks at the rest stops as we drive to Florida (and some supportive honks!). As though the Sun has knowledge of state lines and nicknames, it finally becomes warm. We spend a week in Jacksonville, mostly catching up on work. For the second time in my life, I spend the Day of Mourning (Thanksgiving), without my biological family. I have dinner with a friend from CISV, a peace-education camp I used to work with.
In Orlando, which we learn is a little-known vegan haven, I micro-demonstrate about the electoral college with the oversized truck posters. I get plenty of mixed conversation going. I also reconnect with a friend from high school, and watch one of his hockey games (in Florida!).
It is when visiting Tracey’s friends in Tampa that the Dakota Access Pipeline permit is denied. Skeptical to celebrate, I do some research and quickly learn that this can be easily overturned once Trump takes office, something that most mainstream media do not seem to cover. We take Tracey’s friends to a vegan restaurant, where we tell them all about animal agriculture and the concepts of veganism. As someone who spends much of their advocacy countering a lot of passionately believed falsehoods, it is refreshing to talk to people who are open about what they do not know and genuinely curious to learn. Similarly, we tell them about the #NoDAPL protests.
Eventually, after talking through Tracey’s life and needs, she decides to fly to California and be with family there. I drop her off at the airport and wish her well. She is currently doing awesome work with Animal Equality, an awesome group developing their US presence.
The next day, I meet with my financial advisors. I wrote about my relationship with them in a piece for Resource Generation. They work in Tampa, and though we have spoken a bit over phone, it is always nice to meet in person.
I manage to organize a school visit with another friend from YEA Camp, who runs University of Tampa’s Social Justice Club. This is only my second school visit of the trip, and my first college visit, so I am excited for it. As usual, people are particularly into the truck tour:
While working on my thesis, a mixed-methods survey of activist-education programs in the US, I visit the Dali Museum. I perform at open mics. I write. I visit classmates from my grad program. An adjunct professor friend of mine asks to use my piece about racial rhetoric for his summer course. I am stoked. Then the Patriotic Millionaires ask me to discuss the estate tax at the Trump rally in Orlando. Sometimes the thesis is like trudging through mud, but I am feeling good about what I am working on.
On my way to Miami, I sleep at a rest area and wake to find what looks like a pile of shit on my car seat. After freaking out, I realize a swamp rat got into my car and left a mess of half a banana. I am now more careful about my windows being open.
The Airport Story
I reach Miami the night before my flight back home for the holidays. I clean out #VeggieMonster, wash the sheets, and pack. I park the truck at a service near the airport, and they shuttle me. I am rushing a bit, but the flight is delayed, so I breathe some relief. At the gate, I learn that the flight is delayed by four hours. This is December 23rd. People are angry. I am just relieved I did not miss it, but I feel for them. As the time gets closer, it looks less and less likely that this flight is leaving even within four hours.
The plane that would be taking us to New York is flying in from Cuba. It is also the same staff who will be working both of those flights. Apparently our flight is delayed because that plane is stuck in Cuba for some reason. It turns out the flight is delayed so long that, by contract, the staff are required to have a break and cannot work the flight to NYC. We are now staying overnight. Frontier is looking for hotel space, but again, this is December 23rd. Places are booked. People are pissed. I actually call the place where I parked my truck to see if I can sleep inside that night, and maybe free up a hotel room for someone else, and they agree to it! But I definitely want to stay at the airport until everything dissipates. That ended up being helpful.
A couple on my flight were looking at other options to NY while they were waiting. They found one, but it was leaving very soon. In order to get tickets on that flight, they needed to refund their current tickets. The couple asked what would happen if they missed this new flight, whether they could return as customers of the original one. The staff person at the desk said yes. They made the exchange, ran to the new flight, — and miss it.
When they come back, the original flight (the one I am on) has already been rescheduled to the next morning, and hotel and meal vouchers are already being given out. Frontier airlines, surprise, will not allow them to return their tickets. This means the couple cannot claim meal or hotel vouchers because they are not considered customers of that flight. They have no place to sleep that night.
I overhear this, and I tell them they are welcome to crash in the hotel with me. That one problem is solved (or so we think). We wait an excruciatingly long time for the shuttle to the hotel, where there is another long ass line at the desk. I decide I am going to go back to my truck to grab some muesli for my breakfast the next day. I grab a Lyft and use my truck’s GPS tracker to find it, parked behind a locked fence. I tell the driver to wait for me. I climb the fence and squeeze myself through how-do-they-park-them-this-close cars to get into my truck with my spare key. I grab some muesli, climb the fence back out, and get back in the Lyft to go back to the hotel.
They overbooked. They are making calls to Frontier and other hotels to find out where to put us. I want to reiterate that this is now early in the morning on December 24th, Christmas Eve Day. And that I just left my truck, where I could have slept. They eventually tell us they found a room at the hotel inside the airport (why that was not first on the list, I will never know). Another shuttle ride later, the couple wait to the side while I hand the airport hotel desk staff my voucher. We luck out, and get a double room. I have an early flight, but at least I am sleeping inside the airport. I pass out.
Maybe I did not set my alarm properly. Maybe I slept right through it. Either way, I wake up with less than an hour before my flight leaves. I bounce out of there, and stop at the security line to find that I do not know where my ticket is. While the airport staff scream after me, “Sir you cannot do that!” I leave my luggage at the front of the security line, running as fast as I can back to the room, where I still cannot find the ticket. I run back to the luggage and look through it again, while the airport staff reprimand me.
“I know,” I tell them, “I’m really sorry. What I did was really messed up.”
“Security is on their way.”
“Good! They should be!”
But I still cannot find my ticket, so I run to the front desk, leaving my luggage behind again. While the security line staff scream at me again, the desk staff print me another ticket. I manage to pass the security line before any extra security come. I barely make it to the gate, only because the flight was just slightly delayed again.
And that is the airport story.
