a bright idea. After all, an hour on the bus has got to be better than 2 ½, right? Easy peasy, I had changed my flight to depart from Orlando, the closer airport. The USO was lovely and welcoming. The terminal is cheerful, shiny, but a bit too Disney. The challenge started when the flight before mine leaving gate 124 had an issue.
The dominos started falling. Because the flight to where-ever was delayed, the inbound plane was diverted to 105, meaning that all of us got to stream from one end of the terminal to another. Plane pulls in. It takes over 30 minutes to unload. By the time we are 70% boarded my 60 minute window for plane change in Austin is down to 10 minutes. Not realistic. Then the stewardess pages me along with another passenger. Sara and I look at each other and shrug as we are “invited” to grab our luggage and get rebooked from here.
So queue another hour in the airport. Did I mention that I have been up for over 12 hours with no end in sight? Thought you had guessed.
New boarding passes in hand along with a credit voucher, I finally board. I don’t miss the two ladies with whom I had chatted in the first boarding area who were more than happy to sit with me. Instead I had the opportunity to sit next to a lovely young man on the way home for the holidays. He had been in the row behind me, but when two parents came down the isle with their adult child toward the end of the boarding process, he promptly offered them his row and moved to the middle seat in mine.
Arriving in Denver, at first I panicked when I didn’t see my connecting flight on the board. Double checking by flight number, I was not surprised to find it delayed. For that matter, so is the flight to Los Vegas as well as the young man’s flight to Salt Lake.
So here I am in the Denver airport, now scheduled for departure @2305 Mountain Time and will arrive as close to the scheduled 0035, which of course is Pacific Time. 18+3+? Up too long, that is for certain.
