It’s been awhile since I’ve been back to North Carolina to visit my family. This past trip has been the best, most memorable trip to North Carolina so far. Celebrating birthdays are always special but celebrating a 90th birthday is one of the most important, special birthdays there is. This past week was my grandmother’s 90th and she is still so sweet, quick-witted and loving. I am so fortunate to have a person like her apart of my life even being miles and miles away.
Our trip started a little bumpy to say the least… I almost missed my flight and let me explain just how this happened. My family and I got off to a late start waking up at 4 am for a 7:15 am flight. We accidentally mistook the directions to Atlantic City airport and took the turnpike instead of the parkway pushing us back 45 minutes behind schedule. Once we re-routed and got onto the parkway we noticed that the GPS said our arrival time was 6:50 am, meanwhile our boarding time was 6:30. Panic quickly emerged and we felt SCREWED. Once we finally arrived, my mom said, “I’m dropping you and your brother off, do whatever you can to get onto that flight.” We got there at 6:42 and sprinted to security (we had printed our boarding passes the night before). At security, the man noticed my printed ticket was missing a bar code. Every curse word known to man was running through my head, what now?! Luckily my brother had one so he continued through security and went to our gate just in time to meet up with some of our family. The security man told me to head to the kiosk to print a boarding pass with a bar code, I quickly went over to print it. A caution mark popped up saying “sorry it’s t0o late to check in, please go to the Spirit desk.” Thankfully there was no line so I went up to the desk and begged the women to help me. “I’m sorry you’re too late and you need to reschedule your flight.” At this time my Mom must have missed me and ran herself through security. As I’m waiting to reschedule (no flights until the next day) I get a phone call. “Liv where are you,” my brother sounded surprisingly calm. He continued and said to me, “Mom’s here.” My heart sank, what was I suppose to do? I ran back over to the women shaking and she quickly printed me a new boarding pass after I explained my situation. I then ran like never before through security and the airport finally getting to gate 8. It was like a movie scene. I finally got to my Mom and boarded the plane. Each passenger I passed looked at me funny and muttered under their breath, “there she is.” I have never been so nervous and scared but I will always remember that extremely eventful morning.
Other than that, our trip was very tranquil which was obviously very needed after the airport drama. I had the best time with family and enjoyed the peace of a small town in North Carolina. Sometimes all you need is family and serenity. Enjoy my favorite pictures from Southport/Oak Island North Carolina!
FYI: The town I was in was also where the movie “Safe Haven” was filmed. A local restaurant called Loco Jo’s (best food in Southport) has a picture of Josh Duhamel at the bar.
Thank you Spirit Airlines for getting me to NC!
