Oct. 20, 2002 – Sunday
11:30 AM – Spring Meadows Presbyterian Church Parking Lot
Well, we promised we would attend church here in Las Vegas on Sunday, and here we are. We didn’t skip out. How could we? I am convinced that God watched over each of us on our trip and provided just enough help along the way during our struggle on the trail. One thing none of us could stop talking about after our ordeal was just how faithful He was to us. And yes… there are churches in Las Vegas.
The rest of today, I think we’re just going to relax and figure out how we’re going to get MJ home. Oh and Dave and MJ are going to get their first taste of In N’ Out today… I think anything is good as long as it’s not trail mix. I don’t know if I could ever look at granola the same way again.
11:00 PM – Las Vegas Airport.
By the way, my stick… it made it all the way to the top and was a life saver – literally. There was no way I was not going to bring it home with me. We got a lot of stares at the airport if you can imagine four guys with packs like mountain men and one guy limping in mud encrusted shoes with a large stick in tow. You should have seen the faces of the people at airport security. I told the lady who was checking in our luggage that this stick probably saved my life and needs to be handled with special care. She seemed to understand and put a special tag on it so that would only be hand-carried from location to location.
MJ was put on a waiting list for a flight home, but they said it was very unlikely that he’ll get a seat because it was a Sunday night in Las Vegas and all the vacationers were going home. So they started making plans for him to stay at a cheap hotel tonight and fly out in the morning, but MJ was worried about missing a crucial day of work the next day. So we actually prayed that he would get a seat on this overbooked flight. Plus, the ticket was a super-saver, last minute cancelled, frequent flyer ticket so he was last on the priority list. They said he’d be lucky to even get a flight out the NEXT day.
It was not looking good. The plane had checked in full – meaning that all the boarding passes had been issued. His only chance now was if someone who had already checked in would somehow go missing five minutes before the door closed. His only other chance was to wait at our gate on the other side of the terminal, and go standby on our overbooked flight which had a connection in San Francisco onto another overbooked flight to Baltimore. But that would mean abandoning his post at this flight to take a chance on a free spot on our flight and possibly being stranded in San Francisco.
So MJ stayed at the gate praying that someone who had checked in would not show up. I walked back to my gate to try to use my pull with United Airlines to make some sort of special accommodation for my friend. Then I heard it…
“Frank Sullivan – if you are in the terminal, please report to Gate 24 for boarding.”
“Gate 24, wasn’t that the flight to Baltimore?” I thought as I looked hopefully at Ed…
“Frank Sullivan – this is your final boarding call for flight 1235 for Baltimore”
Woohoo! MJ was probably getting on that plane right at moment!* And now my plane is boarding. God does provide.
* He did, even without a boarding pass… they just pushed him through and closed the door behind him.
The End
*Clap clap clap*.
Dave’s notes, 4 years later:The one bit of good news came the night before, when we returned to Vegas. Even though we didn’t have the energy to catch a show or really do anything because we were so tired and sore, as we were watching the news, I was so relieved to hear that the DC snipers, John Mohammed and Lee Malvo, had been caught by the authorities…Oh baby, that burger was damn good!!!!!! :)Yeah. What an adventure that trip was. We were the true “Band of Brothers.” And we shoulda shouted “Currahee” when we got back to the top. (Currahee translates to “we stand alone together.)”I hope that we can do this trip again, minus all of the drama. But then again, without drama, no one would want to read the sequel, would they?