I have been in seven airports in the last six days

January 31st, 2013

On Thursday I flew from Houston (IAH) to Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) to visit my Grandpa in Boca (contrary to my fears in my last post in August, he is still with us, though mostly in body). On Friday, I drove across Florida to attend the GMU LEC Conference in Captiva. I left Captiva Monday and flew from Ft. Myers (RSW) back to Houston (IAH).

On Tuesday, I taught my two classes, and immediately after classes were over, I hightailed it to Houston’s other airport, Hobby (HOU) and flew to Reagan (DCA) with a layover in Atlanta (ATL). I got into DC around midnight.

Wednesday morning, I presented on a panel at Georgetown Law Center from 10:45-12:00, then did a number of important interviews for my book. I returned to GULC at 4:00 for an all-star panel on the Supreme Court. I was supposed to fly home  from DCA to ATL to HOU on Airtran, but there were some massive thunderstorms in Atlanta. While following the Supreme Court panel, my DCA flight went from delayed by 20 minutes to 40 minutes to 1 hour to 2 hours (it was cancelled around 9:00 p.m.). At that point, I realized I would never make my connection in Atlanta.

I have class Thursday at 9:00 a.m., and I am loathe to cancel class unless absolutely necessary (it hasn’t happened yet). I even made provisions to teach the class by Skype in the event I got stranded. So I checked other flights, and purchased a direct ticket on Southwest from BWI to HOU. Rather than taking the Metro to Reagan, I took the MARC to BWI (my 7th airport!) and flew direct back to HOU.

Major props to Airtran. They refunded the cost for the leg from Reagan to Atlanta to Houston, even before the flight was cancelled–and they did it from the BWI ticket counter!

I am really excited, because in addition to class tomorrow, Professor Michael Krauss from GMU (one of my all-time favorite profs) will be speaking at the South Texas Federalist Society on Atticus Finch and legal ethics. My colleague Professor Jim Paulsen will provide commentary. The students are in for a treat.

krauss

As hectic as this journey is, this does not beat my previous record of six airports in 36 hours during my November 2012 whirlwind trip from Houston to Detroit to Lansing to O’Hare, and MIdway to Dulles, followed by a return trip from Reagan back to Houston.