Just when I was almost over air travel woes... I was sent on an unexpected cross-country business trip for my day job. It was silly -- I was originally supposed to attend a meeting across the continent via conference call but the client decided at the 11th hour that it would be better if I attended in person. So before I could blink, I was confirming travel and hotel arrangements from LA to Florida. Sixteen total travel hours (airplanes and airports) and two night's stay in a hotel for a three-hour meeting... Thankfully, I was able to make my own plans, so I could choose my own preferred airline, departing airport (Burbank or LAX) and times, as long as I was fresh and ready for the meeting.Two days before I was scheduled to leave, my husband's so-called "business partner" (lip service just so he could get my husband to do the dirty work and not complain) decided that he wanted out of the venture and was planning on selling the business lock, stock and barrel. It threw my husband into still yet another tizzy of uncertainty, stress, and fear. It's still not totally resolved, but here I was, getting ready to leave on business when he needs my support the most. Timing is everything.
So Tuesday morning I get to Burbank (now called Bob Hope) airport. My flight is on time and there are no problems. The flight to my connection in Denver is uneventful, and we land in Denver a few minutes early, which will give me about an hour to eat and hang out before I catch my connection to Florida.
However... once we're landed, we simply sit on the runway. After a few minutes, the captain comes over the speakers, saying that there seems to be a bit of a backup at the gates, and there's no room for us. So we sit. And sit. For 45 minutes. When we finally are allowed to taxi to a gate, I see the planes lined up three deep, like a grocery line at rush hour. It took forever but we finally got to a gate, and then I had to sprint through the airport to a different terminal to catch my connecting flight. I barely made it. So much for eating -- I didn't even have time to hit a bathroom.
The hotel room was glorious -- there was even a washer/dryer in there (warm towels!!) and I was exhausted, so I grabbed a bite to eat and basically passed out. The meeting was a whole two hours (all this for a 2 hour meeting), and I still had one more night in Orlando.
The next day I got to the Orlando office and got some work done. My Orlando colleagues and I took the client out to lunch. On the way back to the office where I was to pick up my luggage and go to the airport for the ride back, I got to see the most amazing thing... the Pluto rocket (the launch of which had been postponed for two days due to bad weather) rose up out of the horizon right in front of us and began its fifteen-year trip to the plant Pluto. It was beautiful, and I got to see a little moment of history unfold right before my eyes. It made the whole trip worth it.
Now for the trip home. I was supposed to go from Orlando to Denver and then to Burbank. No such luck -- Denver was in the midst of a lovely January blizzard, and the ticket people determined that my outbound flight to Denver was SO late that I would have missed my connection in Denver (as if my connecting flight wasn't late). So after much debate, I ended up on a standby flight from Orlando non-stop to LAX. Have I mentioned that I HATE flying in or out of LAX? But that's all there was, so I called my husband and gave him the bad news that instead of picking me up at the relatively calm and easy Bob Hope airport, he'd have to pack a meal and drive in circles around the LAX arrivals area until I located my luggage and was able to find him.
Lucky for me, I was the first in line for a standby seat -- the flight was packed and only two of the standby people got seats. Had I been five minutes later, I would have been stuck in Orlando for another night. But I got onto the flight and it was reasonably uneventful. And most importantly, I got home.
But I sure hope I don't have to fly anywhere for a while.
