Miami, not Quito, for the night

Did you know it takes about 3 hours to change out the brake assembly on an American Airlines jet? I know this from experience. We boarded our plane at DFW Airport, bound for Miami where we were to have a 2 hour layover, changing planes to go on to Quito.  As the passengers were finally loaded, only 25 minutes past our scheduled departure time, the pilot said that fluid was seen leaking from near one of the tires during the final inspection, so they needed to check it out. The pilot did keep us informed, telling us that it was the brakes, and that they had to get a new brake assembly. About 2-1/2 hours after we boarded the plane, they had us get off for about 30 minutes, till they finished the job and we reboarded, got de-iced, and left DFW.

However, those new brakes meant that we missed our flight from Miami to Quito. We probably could have gotten rebooked at DFW, but the choice to us was either have someone make trips to DFW Airport again so we could wait in ice and cold in Burleson or go to Miami and wait in sun and warmth. We choose warmth.

Once here, we were directed to the rebooking desk. Because it was a mechanical problem on the plane that caused our delay, we did get a voucher for a hotel room and $50 worth of food vouchers (to be used either at the airport vendors or the hotel restaurant). Had we been delayed by weather, we would not have gotten the hotel and food vouchers. We were rebooked on the first flight to Quito tomorrow, which unfortunately doesn’t leave Miami until 2:55 pm.

Our hotel voucher was for the Holiday Inn nearest to the Airport. This is one of the older ones that has not been remodeled recently. We like Holiday Inn Express hotels, but this is not quite the same. We got here and checked in at 9:40, and had to hurry to the restaurant because it closed at 10 pm. The food was reasonably good. It was Cuban, so the black beans were quite tasty and I ordered a dish with plantains – they have a lot of plantains in Ecuador, so that’s as close to Ecuadorian food as I could get today.

Oh yeah, we couldn’t get our suitcases from American Airlines, so any pictures we take tomorrow will show Phillip and me in these same clothes. This isn’t the way we wanted to start our vacation, but what the heck, it’s great to be in Miami instead of home!