Monday, April 21, 2008

A journey through time and space

So I went away this past weekend to Tennessee. It took a total of 4 plane rides to go round trip. And before I go on, left me explain that each of these planes was filled to capacity, so any thought that Americans are slowing down on air travel due to rising gas prices... wrong. What else is wrong is how horrible flying can actually be. Case in point...my trip.



1) Flight number one- I booked this trip through travelocity, the flight was expensive compared to past flights (due to fuel prices I am sure) but doable. I was supposed to go from Richmond to Memphis to Nashville. When I arrived at the airport (following our post 9-11 directions) an hour early for my flight at the ungodly hour of 6:30am. I marched myself lugging my belongings behind me to the Northwest counter where I typed myself into the "Self checkout" computer. Of course it came up with the ever popular message- sorry please see the ticket agent. No problem at that hour of the morning there was no line. I gave them my name and was informed that I missed check in for my flight. Quizzically I looked at her and said "but my flight is at 7:30am and its now 6:30am and aren't I supposed to be here an hour early?" to which she responded "your flight is leaving the ground right now" I pulled out my on-line confirmation which clearly showed my 7:30am flight-- she was puzzled and announced there is no such flight number... to make a long story short I was rebooked on the next flight out, which happened to be a 7:30 am flight to Minneapolis Minnesota-- yea nothing like trying to go South to end up going north....

2) Flight 2-- no real issue other than I was in Minnesota.

3) Flight 3-- Coming home. We get to the airport early because we had to take a shuttle bus. And guess what--flight delayed 30 minutes... ahh no problem I have a 2 hour layover in Atlanta.

That is it was no problem until when they were getting ready to close the airplane door --they counted the passengers... seems we had 66 people aboard.... and we were only supposed to have 65. They recounted 3 times before they decided we should each tear our boarding pass in half and hand the nice stewardess lady the half with our name on it. The pilot did mention that since 9-11 it was kinda important to at all times know who was on the plane.... That statement sure quieted down the chit chat on the plane. yup 10 minutes later they figured it all out and off we went.

4) Flight 4- Atlanta was a busy busy airport.. Packed is a good description for it. Even with our delay I had plenty of time to make the 3 mile trek from Gate C to Gate A. I did decide to make a pit stop and get a Cinnabon Cinnamon bun and milk since no one feeds you on board anymore.

Once on board I discovered the nice clerk never gave me a fork... I am sure the guy sitting next to me was pleased to have the lady next to him eating the stickiest food ever with her fingers but you gotta do what you gotta do. Did I mention I also spilled my first sip of milk right down the front of me? Again I am the passenger everyone wants to sit next to.... (seriously don't you want to spend a few hours next to a sticky woman who smells of sour milk?) So they closed the doors and about 2 seconds later the pilot gets on the speaker and says...."folks it seems there was some debris on the runway (pause) and it was sucked up into our engine...." At that point I audibly laughed out loud-- sorry but with all the mishaps I had had up until that point I found it amusing.... he went on to say that he was waiting for the mechanics to find a place for us to go so that it could be checked out.....

A few minutes later the plane moved alittle... by then I had settled into reading my magazine. yes a magazine that I had lugged with me from Richmond to Minnesota to Nashville to Atlanta....and then awhile later he came back on telling us that all was fine and we just needed to wait for the head mechanic to bring the log book up to the plane for him to sign off on it... Apparently they have a window in the cockpit that they can pass the clipboard through.--- Smooth sailing from then on right???? yea well kinda... once on the ground it took about 20 minutes before any bags came off the luggage carousel... That's a really long time for an airport the size of Richmond... but I was closer to home than I started the day so all was good! Christopher was a good sport about having to wait for the delayed plane... and the rain was slowing down so my drive home wouldn't be too bad right????



HA! 2 hours from Richmond to home.... the longest trip ever....

1 comment:

kok said...

So know can you 'feel me' when i say travel sux no matter where you are heading...while this weekend will be hawaii for work, i am just SOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to 10 hrs plane rides and countless ways to mess me up...