When Life Serves Up Lemons....

In writing this blog, one of my intentions is to share life lessons as they come along. The date was January 28, 2023. The night before, my friend Cliff Hendrick picked me up at home at 8:30 pm and off we went to Denver International Airport to take the red-eye flight on Frontier Airlines to Orlando, FL en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The weather cooperated; the roads were clear. Everything was set for a smooth start to my third tour of my Biggest Year. The other three tour participants had already arrived in San Juan and our local tour guide Julio Salgado reported that all logistics were ready for a smooth start of the 5-day tour for endemic bird species of Puerto Rico. The start time was 1 PM January 28. Cliff and I were scheduled to arrive from Orlando at 12:15 PM.  

Our red-eye arrived on time at about 5 AM. am. The night sky of Orlando brightened as we waited for our 8:20 AM departure. At 8 AM, the gate sign flashed DELAY and soon after, FLIGHT CANCELLED. After claiming baggage, we decided not to wait in the long Frontier Airlines customer service line for another Frontier flight. Instead, we booked the next flight we could which would depart Olando at 1:30 PM, and made plans to meet Julio and the group for dinner in Manati, Puerto Rico, after missing the first afternoon of the tour.

This new plan gave us an hour to walk around the airport grounds in Orlando. Doing so, I added three Biggest Year Birds: Boat-tailed Grackle, Fish Crow and Black Vulture. This brought my total to 307 species. We arrived on time at dinner, and didn´t miss any bird species from that first afternoon of the tour. I´m sure there are some life lessons in this story. 


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