So we had a pretty eventful vacation. I'm going to call this vacation, "If it can go wrong, it probably will." I am going to premise the story by saying that I really hate to fly. I get nervous and have a small panic attack at take off and with even the smallest turbulence.
Thursday: We left for our trip around noon and headed to Chicago. We met up with Damian and got to see him for a little while and he brought us to Midway. Midway is pretty good airport. We don't normally have a problem with flights going out of Midway. Our flight was on schedule and we headed to our layover in Atlanta. I don't know if it's Delta or just the Atlanta airport, but we never seem to have flight in or out of Atlanta be on time. Some how we took off from Midway on time, but landed in Atlanta late (which is typical). We ran to our connection flight and of course if was behind schedule because they were waiting for the crew to show up. We finally took off and we should have been in Tulsa an hour and a half later. The pilot told us that we were on our final decent and that we should be in Tulsa in the next twenty minutes. Apparently, it was storming in Tulsa and the pilot came back on the speaker and said that he didn't feel that it was safe for him to land during the storm (which we found later was probably the right decision), so we were on our way to Little Rock, Arizona. The rest of the flight was nothing short of terrifying. The plane shook and it felt like at any moment it would break apart. Now as much as I will complain about Delta in this situation I thought they did a great job. The Delta representative gave us hotel vouchers for a really nice hotel. Apparently some on our flight were not so lucky. A few of the passengers were given vouchers for a hotel called Roadway Inn, which we found out later is similar to the Wooden Indian Inn. Those passengers showed up at our hotel and luckily were able to get a hotel room. One lady said her cab driver refused to even take her to that hotel and brought her directly to the hotel we were at.
Friday: The storm followed us to Little Rock and the tornado alarms were going off all night. Friday morning, they gave everyone a breakfast and lunch meal voucher and $200 flight voucher for our next flight. I don't know if a lot of people complained or if they just felt really bad about the situation. Getting 109 people booked in different hotels at 10pm is probably not easy after all. So by 9:30, we were on our way to Tulsa for the second time. I was so tired by the time we actually got to Tulsa. When we picked up our rental car and finally got settled into our hotel room, we met up with the Steinbachs and helped them finish setting up the hotel. I was good to finally see Liz and her parents. I have missed them. If I can find a bright spot so far the Little Rock issues did give us a free hotel room for a night and one less day for the rental car. That saved us at least $100. We went to dinner at the same restaurant they had the rehearsal dinner. We weren't with the party, but we sat at a table near them.
Saturday: Saturday, we did some shopping around the city and got ready for the wedding. Amy was a beautiful bride. After the reception, we helped clean up and hung out at Liz's house for a little while with her family.
Sunday: We showed up at the airport on time. Of course, per normal Delta, the flight was delayed. We only had a 40 minute layover in Minnesota, so I was getting nervous that if we didn't take off on time that we would miss our flight home. We thought the reason the flight was not taking off was because Delta overbooked the flight because they were asking for volunteers to leave the flight. We actually considered it because they were going to give us $400 each but they couldn't get us on a one-way flight to Chicago until after 10pm, so wouldn't have gotten home until long after midnight. Since we had to work today, they wouldn't work for us. We found out later that they actual reason we were waiting was because three flight attendants and a pilot wanted to fly deadhead on the flight and there wasn't room for them, so Delta kicked paying customers off the flight because some employees wanted to fly for free. I don't mind waiting if there is a mechanical problem because I understand they want to keep us safe, but waiting for flight crews to arrive or kicking off passengers for a non-paying flight crew is unacceptable in my book. We finally boarded the plane almost twenty minutes after we should have been taking off. Only three fliers volunteered, so actually had to kick one guy off not voluntarily. He did not look happy at all. We landed in Minnesota with fifteen minutes to spare before our flight to Chicago was to take off. We asked the flight attendant for the gate of our connecting flight and ran to that gate just to find out that the attendant was wrong. We were at the wrong gate, so we ran to right one knowing that we probably would get there just in time to watch the plane take off. That however was not the case. They hadn't even boarded the plane yet because there was an engine issue with the plane. This time the delay actually worked in our favor. Our 2:15 flight finally got off the ground at 3:30 and we were on our way home. Damian picked us from the airport, we drove home and went to bed.
It was a crazy vacation that involved a near nervous breakdown, but Steve knows my comfort food and he got me some ice cream while we were waiting for our Chicago flight to board. He is such a great husband! The positives are that I got to see Lizzy and her parents and we did save some money on hotel and rental fees, but the rest of it...Let's just say that I'm glad to be home.
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