12.26.2008

No Rest for the Weary

Once again we booked the EARLY flight out of town. The last time there were very few concerns about whether we were going to be able to fly out. This time Mother Nature wanted to make this trip just a bit more interesting.

After heading out to my parents place the night before, the 3:15am wakeup call was not a pleasant surprise. After a quick shower we were on the road and heading to the airport. I was hoping it didn’t look like a homeless shelter since so many flights had been canceled because of all the snow. The one blessing of having a 6:15am flight is that zero hour is even early at the airport. The lines were relatively short and we were through check-in and security in less than 45 minutes.

Sitting at the airport before our first flight. We are just happy to be through security on time.


So there we are in the concourse nice and early. Shortly before our departure they loaded the plane and the door is shut 5 minutes early. Are you kidding me? All this crazy weather and we are actually getting pushed back from the gate before our scheduled departure. NICE!!!

Is this Spokane or Salt Lake City?


The de-icer starts working its magic and then the stall begins. We sat just 100’ from the gate and waited for over an hour as the captain and flight attendants did absolutely nothing to inform us of cause for delay. Under any normal circumstance I really don’t worry too much about these delays but when your layover is just 25 minutes there really isn’t much time to spare. After trying to calm down my worrisome mother (she REALLY wants to make it to Virginia on time), I tried to make a quick call and see what other options we had incase were didn’t make our connection.

OK now this is Salt Lake. Bone dry.

After learning our only option would be to fly through Atlanta and get in 5 hours later, we really wanted to make this flight. About halfway to Salt Lake our ever so talkative pilot finally makes a verbal appearance and was ‘pleased’ to inform us that we would be arriving at 9:30am local time. Perfect, that would give us exactly 5 minutes to exit the plane and make it to the next.

We made the flight.

Thankfully we arrived about 5 minutes earlier than expected and were able to get on our connecting flight with just a few minutes to spare. There were only two people behind us and one was a crew member. I am glad that we made the flight because Mom was not going to be happy if we had to figure out another option.

A view our of the plane.


The Shenandoah River!

We landed safely in Washington D.C. and made it to my sis's place. Even though it was a bit of a stressful trip, I am glad we made it.

5 comments:

Tiffany said...

I'm glad you made it too. Thanks for the pics, I barely recognize land any more if it's not completely white!

Hope you're having a great time with the fam. Sure missed ya at the BAT this morning!

jessithompson said...

Glad you made it safely... I must admit I wasn't sure you guys were going to be able to get out. Can't believe the temps you're having too. We sure miss you, though... just not the same without you!

Tim Swanson said...

What an adventure....a 3:15am wake up call followed by all that? Sounds like Ironman :)

Michael W. Bergquist said...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Steve. I'm not sure why, but I thought you were going to say you got halfway there and they pilot informed you that they'd have to turn around due to a malfunction. That happened to me once. When you're halfway there already, you might as well finish the trip. Anyway, I hope your vacation was great. When you get back, I'm hoping you'll send me the pic of Evan and me with our frozen faces.

LORIE said...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year dear friend. Glad you made it. Whew. Hugs to you.