Posts Tagged ‘flight delays’
Brothers All
In a single day, we were with all of Cyndie’s brothers as well as her mom yesterday. We started the day with Barry and Carlos in Maine and then had dinner in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the rest of the clan for Marie’s 88th birthday celebration.
The snapshot above is a photo I took when Barry was showing Cyndie where the many volunteer shoots of birch trees were available for pulling. Why would she pull up their baby birch trees?
Never one to be intimidated by logical limitations about packing live plants in a plastic bread bag to stuff into an already full carry-on bag that gets crammed below the seat in front of her on an airplane, Cyndie brought home trees from the garden in Maine to plant somewhere around Wintervale.
I will not fixate on the long odds for her success, but instead plan to help scout out a new location where we can nurse the new transplants toward some percentage of actually surviving.
After hugging Barry and Carlos one last time as we dropped them off at their condo, we returned the wildebeest to the car rental company and boarded a shuttle headed toward our gate. Have I mentioned how much I would prefer to avoid air travel?
Mike got a ping on his phone about a delay in our flight home. As he attempted to navigate the information on the app, Barb’s and his tickets mysteriously disappeared. Cyndie still had our boarding pass screens on her phone, so Mike called the Delta service for preferred customers to work on solving the mystery.
It was a good thing we had arrived with time to spare, because it took a nerve-wrackingly long time to fix whatever had just gone wrong. In the end, their seats were re-established, and we were safe to proceed. However, the flight delay remained, and we lost precious time on our tight schedule to leave Boston and get home in time for dinner with the family members who would be gathering to celebrate Marie’s birthday.
We got to our car in St. Paul roughly a half-hour after the time of our reservation at Holman’s Table restaurant. Luckily, we were only 15 minutes away. Our daughter, Elysa, texted that the appetizers were just arriving at their table.
We showed up before they had even given their dinner orders. A family birthday celebration for the matriarch is a pretty special finish to our adventures of the previous week.
Some silliness ensued. Happy Birthday, Marie!
Dinner with the family wasn’t the final treat of our big day, though. After driving another 50 minutes in the dark to get to our house, we were rewarded with the cutest puppy-like reception from Asher when we got inside.
Gee, but it’s great to be back home…
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I Survived
After a whirlwind of a special wedding weekend in Chicago, we made it home a little before 10:00 last night and were able to get a full night’s sleep in our own bed. Man, did I need that. Waking up Sunday morning after only four hours of sleep was woefully inadequate.
We endured an almost three-hour flight delay before being able to board our plane and depart from O’Hare airport. In the end, we and the Minnesota contingent of Cyndie’s family all made it home around the same time, despite half of them driving back in two different cars and half flying. Hardly seems fair.
Over the three days we were there, we attended three gala events, two of which I needed to tough out in formal attire.
Somehow, I managed to survive unscathed. It’s a good thing Cyndie was willing to dress me up for the occasion. I didn’t follow through with a threat to wear my manure composting boots with the suit to the wedding Saturday night.
All my complaining was overblown. We had a great time at all the fabulous events, despite the sad fact that Julian wasn’t able to be there with us. If I could just get over my miserly objections to the money that gets spent on dressing so fine, I could even be talked into doing it again sometime. Hopefully, sometime far in the future, though.
I’m not a guy who has any inclination toward wearing a suit on a regular basis.
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Weather Delays
What a day of travel we endured yesterday. Florida was experiencing a cycle of non-stop rain and Minnesota was getting smacked with heavy snowfall. It impacted our plans on both ends.
I took one last photo of the pool before we left, in the dreary rain, all covered up for the cool week ahead.
By noon, we were at the Fort Myers airport for our early afternoon flight. Unfortunately, it didn’t depart in the early afternoon, as planned. In fact, it didn’t depart at all.
The initial delay was rumored to be because of a wind shear situation that was preventing our plane from being allowed to land. It circled the Fort Myers airport until it was so low on fuel that it needed to divert to a different airport to refuel.
Eventually, after several delays that pushed it to a 4:30 departure time, our flight was ultimately canceled. The next flight that airline offered was going to be in a couple of days.
That didn’t work for us.
Cyndie contacted her parents and they were able to find us seats on a Delta flight that was to leave at 6:30. We had to get to baggage claim to find our luggage and then make a second trip through security.
We got a little nervous when that flight announced a departure delay, but it only happened once. This time they said air traffic control in Minneapolis was dealing with bad weather and pushing arrivals out. Once our plane was in the air, we figured we were done worrying, but there was a moment of discomfort when we got stuck circling a couple times before final descent was able to happen.
Initially, we only found one of our bags at MSP baggage claim, a process complicated by their announcing the wrong carousel for pick up. The clock was ticking for us because every minute of delay allowed the snowy roads to get worse than they already were.
By 11:00 p.m. we were finally in our car and ready to forge our way on unplowed roads for the hour-long drive home.
It was wicked. Visibility was poor, and the snow-covered roads were treacherous. As we got close to home, the wind was creating bumpy waves of drifted snow across the pavement.
Surprisingly, the harsh conditions only added 15-minutes to our drive home from the airport. Unsurprisingly, the horrible driving convinced me that I would not be making the trip to the day-job this morning, like I had originally planned.
Looks like I’ll be plowing and shoveling, instead.
That’s one way to welcome us home again.
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Plane Delay
Our plan for the day played out perfectly, right up to the point where the pilot, standing next to his suitcase, took the microphone to speak to the throng standing in queue to board.
The walk-around revealed a leak that would require taking the plane back to the hangar for repair.
How can you argue with a delay situation that involves not flying in a plane with mechanical issues?
We didn’t settle into a bed until the wee hours of this morning, but did so safe, sound, and thrilled to be laying heads on pillows.
We’re here!
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Relative Something 