American Airlines has just fulfilled a childhood dream of mine by delivering me to Tucson, Arizona! Yippee.

After being slightly delayed in Dallas due to a big thunderstorm close to the airport, our MD-80 took off successfully and started making its way down to Mexico. But shortly before arriving in Cabo San Lucas, we had to make a 90° turn and head back up into the States because San Jose del Cabo airport wouldn’t stay open an extra 8 minutes to accommodate our plane’s late landing.

So now I’m at a Holiday Inn Palo Verde in Tucson. First, we were shuttled to the Comfort Inn, but they ran out of rooms half way into accommodating the 18 stranded travelers. The stranded, stranded remainder were then shuttled to the Holiday Inn Express, who had no idea who we were. Finally, we ended up at the Palo Verde Holiday Inn, a virtual mecca of culture in itself! Oh, blessed American Airlines, thank you so very much.

If AA makes me miss my Solmar V departure tomorrow, I’m going to be really pissed.

At least I got to meet and chat with two divers from outside of Frankfurt (Uli and Katherine) who recognized me as we waited outside in 36°F weather for the (first) hotel shuttle.