Here’s a brief outline of our recent adventures as experienced by my wife and I:
Taxi didn’t come as expected to take us to the airport.
Activated plan b and drove to the airport (requiring long-term parking)
Missed getting on flight because of 15 minutes and an unhelpful airline worker who wasn’t willing to try
desperate attempts to resolve the now-approaching-fiasco-proportions problem requires going home and buying new airline tickets (through a different airline). This is slightly amusing in that this second airline uses the first airline to fly out of this particular airport and that the first airline didn’t “show” any available flights.
So we buy new tickets. It will now become a 3 step flight – Lansing to Atlanta to Las Vegas. But at least we will be where we expected to be within 24 hours.
We call the appropriate family members so they will know when we will be showing up
The flight goes well and smoothly and we arrive in Vegas to enjoy Christmas. Our holiday includes a trip north to visit the grandparents and family in Utah, where we also enjoy some beautiful snow and sledding.
On the 28th we flew out of Vegas to visit Seattle and my folks. The trip is about perfect. A kid on the plane wonders how I can read so fast as I’m already on page 185 of a big book.
We arrive in Seattle and are treated royally by the family. Parties and fun ensue. “Risk” is proven to be time consuming and stressful when played against other humans. It doesn’t help when you’re related to them either.
January 3rd arrives and its time to leave. At the airport we discover a problem. Our first flight is going to be delayed by an hour. Our connecting flight only has a layover of 45 minutes. Fortunately the airline worker was quite helpful and eventually found us an alternative flight – however it would be a late-night and we wouldn’t get to Lansing until 11 am the next day. However this is much better then being delayed by a whole 24 hours which would be our other option. So we get to enjoy another “last” supper with the family before leaving to make our 10 pm flight to Detroit.
After a 3 hour layover in Detroit, we arrive, finally, at Lansing at 11 am. At this point I’m running on about 2-3 hours of sleep. Removing snow and ice from the car takes a good 15-20 minutes (looks like we got about a foot). Long term parking costs add to an already expensive trip, but Kaylee and I both agree – it was worth it to see family.
And that’s why I didn’t show up to work as expected on Friday…I hope your holidays weren’t quite as adventurous!
