The Rerouted Skytress

The Rerouted Skytress is celebrating it’s third anniversary! Thankfully, there is flour in the grocery store to make a cake to celebrate. Three years ago, this wasn’t the case. Heck. Three years ago, it was mentality challenging just to walk into the grocery store. Egads! I don’t miss those days. I’ll admit. I do miss the days of lounging around the house watching the Cowboy and Hallmark Channels. Yes. I still watch those channels. However, I’m not lounging around the house like I did back then. Yessiree. I actually have to go to work to get a paycheck these days. More importantly, I have to go to work to get stories for The Rerouted Skytress blog. Fortunately, I have a wonderful trip to write about this week. It’s a trip that starts with the Rerouted Skytress wishing she got rerouted. Thankfully, I didn’t. Because, I had a phenomenal trip.

I was looking forward to my long Nashville layover from the day our monthly bid results came out. Unfortunately, my Nashville friends weren’t able to get together on my layover. Still, I knew I would have a marvelous time in Nashville. Heck. It’s Nashville! Incredibly, 45 minutes outside of landing, I was starting to pray we would land anywhere besides Nashville. You see, Mother Nature was extremely mad that night. She was producing nasty storms all across the Midwest. We dealt with rough air from Atlanta to Seattle. The rough air increased as we flew from Seattle to Nashville. As we approach Nashville from the East, …yes, you read this correctly,…we were no longer bumping along with the rough weather. No siree. We were now swishing and swaying with the incredible crosswinds. It was an extremely unsettling feeling. I’ll admit. I have never prayed so much on an approach in my career. The Captain had informed the crew earlier that we were going to fly between two storm systems on our approach into Nashville. He, also, informed us we had alternate cities available for a diversion. The longer I held on to the slide bustle in the back of the Boeing 737-900 to steady myself from the crosswinds jostling us about, the more I wished we would divert to one of those cities. Heck. I could always go back to Nashville for a long layover. I was mentally counting the minutes until we landed. I was confident our pilots would execute the perfect landing. It was just excruciating getting to that point. When we touched down in Nashville the passengers applauded. I would have applauded too. Only, I was busy saying prayers of thanks to God.

It was after 1am when we arrived at the ground transportation area. Our scheduled shuttle driver wasn’t there. The First Officer was watching the shuttle driver driving further away from the airport on the shuttle app. Fortunately, our Captain made the quick decision to pay for a cab to take us to the hotel. Despite the fact I had been up over 24 hours, I couldn’t fall asleep when I got to my hotel room. However, I wasn’t going to let the lack of sleep keep me from wandering around Nashville on my layover. Heck. It was Nashville! My new Skytress friend, Angela, and I met in the hotel lobby at noon. Angela was as excited as I was to explore Nashville. Fortunately, it was an incredibly beautiful Saturday. The storms had given way to sunshine and gusty winds. Unlike the crosswinds we experienced on our approach into Nashville, these winds felt delightfully exhilarating.

Skytress Angela and I had barely left the hotel when I noticed a couple wearing St. Louis Blues hockey shirts. I was about to say something when I noticed more people walking about with Blues paraphernalia on. It suddenly dawned on me the Blues were playing the Nashville Predators at the Bridgestone Arena. I felt a little guilty I was in town and not going to the game to root for my Blues. The guilt disappeared when I saw the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I couldn’t help myself. I smiled ridiculously when I saw the building. Yes. I may listen to Canadian country music these days. However, my favorite country artists are enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Skytress Angela and I decided to keep walking over to Broadway. Broadway is is where the notorious Nashville bars and restaurants are located. It’s, also, where the party buses and pedal pushing bars frequent. I’ll admit. I saw more twerking on party buses in a three block radius than I have witnessed my entire life.

Skytress Angela and I walked with the throngs of people down Broadway. We eventually decided to break off from the legions of people and turned down a side street. Skytress Angela immediately saw the sign for the Johnny Cash Museum. I immediately saw the sign for the Goo Goo Cluster Candy Store. Since the candy store didn’t have an admission fee, we decided to check it out instead of the museum. After all, it’s a Nashville institution. Just like Johnny Cash. The store’s crisp red and white interior was invigorating. This, coupled with a store filled of chocolate, made both of us giddy. Shall I say it? Yes. I shall…We were definitely two kids in a candy store! We happily checked out all the Goo Goo Cluster items in the store. We could have designed personalized chocolate bars on the touch screen kiosk. Then we could have watched the chocolatiers make our custom designed chocolate bars on the opposite side of the store. Ultimately, Skytress Angela decided to buy a beautifully designed chocolate bonbon. I opted to purchase two boxes of classic Goo Goo Cluster chocolates for Easter. Yessiree. I did not regret my decision in the least.

I had decided when my Nashville friends couldn’t get together that I was going to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I wanted to go inside the Hall of Fame when we walked by it earlier in the day. However, Skytress Angela had mentioned when we met in the hotel lobby that she wasn’t sure she wanted to pay the admission price for any of the museums in Nashville. When we left the candy store I decided I was going to go back to the museum….and I was taking Skytress Angela with me. I told Angela I was going to treat her to the museum. Heck. Skytress Angela had only been flying for two months. We needed to create some lasting layover memories for her. Plus, I wanted to properly welcome her to our crazy airline family.

I love all genres of music. However, country music truly speaks to my heart. You may remember my post about my neighborhood where I get to pick my neighbors. Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks were some of my closest neighbors. I was tickled to see my neighbors and my other country favorites proudly represented at the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was fascinated by the artifacts on exhibit. Many displays evoked a memory from my past. Some country artist names I hadn’t thought about in years. Some older names I didn’t know. Still I knew they played an essential part for my love of country music. I marveled at the colorful outfits, boots and instruments in the glass display cases. I was shocked my reaction to Elvis Presley’s gold-plated Cadillac was so nonchalant. Then again, I had just gawked at Webb Pierce’s Pontiac Bonneville Convertible moments before. The customized Nudie Mobile complete with its revolver car handles, silver shotgun on the trunk and miniature saddle insert in the front seat had set the Country star car gold-standard for me. Speaking of gold. The gold records hanging from the multiple walls in the museum was utterly impressive. My only regret was I didn’t have time to read all the information that accompanied the displays. Oh, well. This just means I will gladly have to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum again!

Skytress Angela and I left the museum just as the hockey game ended. The streets were overflowing with people. We walked down Broadway to find a place to eat. Our efforts were futile. People were waiting in long lines to enter every restaurant and bar on Broadway. Music flowed from each establishment we passed by. I couldn’t fathom how one band or singer could ever become famous in a city that just oozes with talent. Whenever we passed an open restaurant window and I saw a drummer enthusiastically beating on his drums, I thought of Ron. Ron was an exceptionally talented drummer. Needless to say, Ron loved laying over in Nashville because of the tremendously talented musicians. Ultimately, Skytress Angela and I decided our best bet was to leave Broadway and head to side streets to find a less crowded restaurant. We decided to eat at a restaurant down the street from our hotel. Of course, we both ordered the Nashville chicken. It would have been a sin if we didn’t. The Nashville chicken was scrumptious. We finished our meal just in time to meet up with the rest of our crew back at the hotel. The hotel had a complimentary happy hour and dinner fare. The Captain and First Officer were already waiting when we arrived. The rest of our crew trickled in after Skytress Angela and I sat down. One by one, we recounted how we had spent our day in Nashville. We spent the remainder of the evening talking and laughing. It was a rare treat for all of us to gather around a table and hang out as a crew. My crew and I continued laughing and joking as we stepped into the elevator to head to our respective hotel rooms. As I walked to my room, I was so grateful we made it to Nashville. All the praying I had done the night before on our approach into the airport was totally worth it. I thought to myself, “Hooray for The Rerouted Skytress not being rerouted!”

Hooray for “The Rerouted Skytress” celebrating it’s third anniversary! I can only fathom the stories I will blog about this coming year. I’m confident the Rerouted Skytress will get rerouted a few times. Hopefully, the reroutes will be blog worthy. Heck. If I have to be rerouted, I should at least get a good blog story out of it. Fortunately for you my sweet readers, summertime flying is fast approaching. All Skytresses and Skyters know summertime flying produces some of the best stories. I surmise several of these stories will be survival stories. Yessiree. Stories of how we survived the summer passengers and newly hired Skytresses and Skyters. I anticipate on having some fabulous layovers to blog about, too. That’s a hint, hint and a wink, wink to the bidding gods. If not, I’ll just have to create some fun layovers so I can blog about them.

I want to thank you all, again for reading my blog. This journey would not be the same without you all. You all are the most loyal, gracious passengers this Rerouted Skytress could ever ask for. Once again, I have booked a first-class seat for you all so we can ponder life, share some laughs and possibly shed a tear or two. So…Here’s to an adventurous fourth year. In the infamous written words of Ron, “Let’s have a great trip”.