Final DaZe Fiascos
Sorry for the lapse in time from our last post! We have been BUSY getting adjusted and settled on the island. Where we left off in our last post was that we had dropped Piper off at the airport in Columbus, OH to start her journey. SPOIL ALERT! She made it! Hope that helps your anxiety levels 🙃We had issues along the way…. of course.
When dropping Piper off at the airport they processed her and put her in the crate in the back of the warehouse. THEN they decided to check the weather reports. She was fine to land in Seattle that morning, the first leg of the trip. Next, they checked the second leg of Seattle —> Honolulu, which left the next morning. When I heard the agent say “Uh-oh”, my stomach flipped. She announced that it was predicted to be 86 degrees when she landed in Honolulu the next day so they would not fly her. ?????! I promptly reminded her that the flight to Hawaii was not until the next day so why did the weather report matter for her flight to Seattle? Of course, the supervisor is got involved. She very flatly stated that they will not fly an animal if any of the stops on the billet have a temperature above 85 degrees, no matter the day. I am ill. But I was NOT going down easy. I argued that you can’t possibly deny her flight to Seattle because of the POSSIBILITY that the next day it is ONE DEGREE too hot for her to land in Hawaii. I explained our situation that this was really our only shot of getting our dog to Guam before we leave on military orders. She had to smell the panic in the air. So the supervisor called her supervisor. This angel on the phone agreed that they would send her to Seattle and just hope that the temperature would be okay for her to fly out the next day. PTL! 🙌🏻
Paul’s friend picked her up in Seattle and she quickly settled in! Needless to say I was one ball of anxiety and exhausted…didn’t sleep the night before dropping her off in Columbus and wasn’t going to until we were reunited. The weather Gods answered my prayers and it was predicted to be 85 degrees in Honolulu when she landed so Piper made it on her flight to Hawaii no problem. The problem that day was on the human side.
In order to land in Hawaii you have to have a negative COVID test with 72 hours of your flight. They only accept a certain kind of test, no rapid tests allowed. As we were staying at Paul’s parents house in West Virginia, the closest place that would give us same day results was Walgreens 30 minutes away. I scheduled us appointments for Saturday morning (day before we fly) several days prior. We showed up on time and did our drive-thru test and instructed that we would receive our results in a few hours. As we pull away… Paul realizes that his last name is spelled incorrectly on his paperwork. Grisby instead of GriGsby. We go back through the drive-thru and identify the problem and ask them to fix it on the computer so it will match his ID. No dice. The clerk claims she can’t change anything in the system but it SHOULD be okay because his date of birth would match. “SHOULD”?! That’s not good enough. So we asked if we could make another appointment and do it again. No dice. Walgreens does not take same day appointments. I begged, I knew they had openings available, but she wouldn’t budge. She recommended the next place was CVS but the closest one was in Pennsylvania…over an hour away. This was our last day before moving and if anyone HAS to make it to Guam on the original flight is Paul due to having to report for duty. So, we start the drive up to PA while I am calling and making appointments for Paul at CVS. With further investigation the test that would give us results in time before we fly was not an approved test for Hawaii. GREAT. So I am researching all other options. Apparently no one speaks on the phone anymore about COVID, only automated phone lines that NEVER give you the answer you want. No one in a 5hr radius would be able to give us same day appointments and have results prior to our flight to Hawaii. The last option I found was a COVID test at Dulles airport that had an appointment within our 1.5hr lay over and would give results in time. It’s an expensive option, but that didn’t matter at this point. We pulled in to CVS in PA to talk to them about their test types and as we pulled up we got notifications our results from the Walgreens test were in. Of course we were COVID negative, but at the top of the PDF it had Pauls’ CORRECT name, DOB, and all other information!!! WHAT?! I am in tears of relief. I have NO idea why the page Walgreens gave us was incorrect but correct on the results page. At this point we didn’t even care. We drove the 1.5hr home just exhausted. It was time to get home and spend some time with family and finish last minute packing.
That evening I kept checking my phone waiting for a phone call that the company in Hawaii had gotten Piper from the airport, but no phone call. I waited as long as I could and then called the company. They still didn’t have her. The flight landed in Hawaii on time but they didn’t unload it for TWO HOURS. They had no explanation as to why they hadn’t unloaded the plan, but were at the airport waiting for her to get unloaded and processed by animal quarantine. All I could imagine was Piper stuck in her crate on this plane just sitting on the tarmac 😭. The other concern was that there was only one hour left before the animal quarantine facility would no longer process animals. If they closed before she could get processed, they would keep her in a kennel at the airport overnight. Thankfully 45 minutes later I got a phone call and pictures that Piper was off the plane, processed (without issue of paperwork), and safe with the other company!
It was time to breathe, a little. Our girl made it and the next morning we would be starting our journey to the Pacific!