How to Get to Nashville in 43 Easy Steps

You know what’s even more annoying than when you have to switch your flight to Nashville for a conference because of the nor’easter and the new flight leaves at 5 a.m.? When you get up at an hour so early in the morning that it is still late at night and then find out at 3:30 a.m., while in the parking shuttle on the way to the airport, that your flight is cancelled and the airline wants to book you on a 5 a.m. flight the next day, so you’ll have to do that all over again. Then you stand in line for at least 45 minutes in the terminal trying to get an alternate flight, on hold the entire time with the company’s after-hours travel service. Then, since you don’t want to miss more of the conference, there are plans for you to switch flights with a coworker, or to fly direct to Knoxville and then rent a car and drive three hours through a totally unfamiliar state to Nashville. Then neither of those plans works out and you end up having to fly from Philadelphia to Raleigh-Durham to Charlotte to Nashville. So that’s three flights. And all this planning was over and done with before 6 a.m. And I hadn’t had my coffee yet and I am a total bitch until I get my coffee.