UCF airport shuttle helps eager students head home for holidays
Cael Blease lugged his duffel bag with the contents that smelled like a wet dog and waited for his ride to the airport.
The University of Central Florida freshman was unwilling to spend the $3 or so to wash his dirty laundry, so now he planned to haul it to his family’s home to San Diego, where, thankfully, the washing machine was free.
On the cool morning Tuesday, Blease joined more than a dozen students in line for the school’s holiday shuttle bus to Orlando International Airport.
There was the feeling of homecoming during their final moments on campus before they flew home to Pennsylvania or California and other places for Thanksgiving break. The students thought of a pet dog back at home, a favorite holiday dish of mashed potatoes or seeing loved ones for the first time in months.
The student government sponsors the free shuttle that began last year. The bus transports students back and forth to and from the airport for Thanksgiving and winter breaks.
Before the shuttle arrived Tuesday morning, some sat at the bus stop, surrounded by oversized suitcases or a skateboard duct-taped into a box to be checked in before a flight. One student clutched a Disney pillow.
Jasmine Hardrick hadn’t flown in an airplane since she was a toddler.
Hardrick, 18, was meticulous and a planner, the kind of mind-set that might help her become a good orthodontist someday.
She wrote down her mother’s step-by-step instructions in pretty handwriting with bullet points so she would know exactly what to do in the airport on her own.
“Find the gate!” was under bullet point No. 7.
She kept notebook paper close, in case she needed to pull it out at the airport.
Her father briefed her on the phone again Tuesday morning, just in case she got lost or forgot to watch over her suitcase at all times in the busy airport.
Hardrick’s flight was leaving for Connecticut for a holiday break where she wanted to watch the new “Hunger Games” movie and eat her mother’s cooking, a welcome reprieve from her dorm food.
“It was good at first,” Hardrick said. “Then it started to get really repetitive.”
Hardrick pulled her leopard-print suitcase up into the shuttle.
By 9:02 a.m., the driver had pulled out of the bus stop, leaving behind the palm trees and the 60-degree fall weather as he played Christmas music on the radio.
Most of the students were quiet, texting on their phones or listening to music on the 20-mile ride.
But in the back, John Bal, 18, laughed with Blease about his
mother’s new Instagram account for the family cat. Blease’s smelly laundry was in a seat dangerously close to him.
Bal was scheduled to fly into Pittsburgh that afternoon, a day earlier than what he told his girlfriend. He planned to surprise her at the Chipotle restaurant where she works, the place where they met.
Bal hadn’t seen his girlfriend, Amanda, since she visited him on campus five weeks ago. Since then, they had Skyped for 90 minutes every Monday on their date nights.
She was blond and funny, the kind of person who would get a tattoo of pepperoni pizza on her arm even though she is a vegetarian, he said.
Bal’s few days were packed: going back to his old high school for a talent show, seeing friends, spending time with his family, studying for a calculus exam. But he promised his girlfriend he would shop with her in the early-morning hours on Black Friday and go “wherever she wants to go.”
The bus continued on the toll road, past a field of lazy cows.
“You think I can make a 10:30 a.m. flight?” asked one student in an unusually calm voice behind Bal. “I get nervous when I’m rushing.” It was almost 9:30 a.m. A few minutes later, the students arrived at the airport, their first step toward home.