On Tuesday, September 10, my mom asked me to fly back to see her. This was an incredibly ironic twist because we had JUST purchased tickets on Saturday for me to go out in October, and I had told her during the summer that Dan would be out of town for a week in September... which was that following week.
But... I love my mom. And I am not without resources and a shocking number of really amazing friends. Thus, within 6 hours, I had secured a babysitter for the week Dan and I would both be gone, and I had tickets to go back. I was on a plane Thursday morning.
It was not smooth sailing.
This is what the Chicago airport looked like when I arrived at 3pm Thursday afternoon and they had already cancelled my 7:30pm flight for bad weather. Apparently there WAS bad weather somewhere that was delaying flights and my incoming flight was something something something, so it was canceled nice and early.
I went to see Customer Service and told them I just needed to get close to Mountain Home and any of several airports would work. They put me on a 7:30pm flight to Little Rock and assured me my luggage would be switched and go with me.
I hung out and watched the flight boards. My departure gate changed several times. My flight time was pushed back several times. I was so stinking tired that I wanted to sleep, but was too afraid I would miss another change to my flight. Finally, at 10pm, they just cancelled my flight due to the delayed causing the crew to max out their hours and they were unable to fly any more hours. Sigh. Back to Customer Service. I waited for nearly 2 hours with a host of unhappy passengers.
They finally rebooked me for a flight to Little Rock in the morning and said they would reimburse for a hotel, but most were booked because everyone was stuck. They were putting up cots and I was welcome's to take one. I did not want one. I went ahead and wandered down to the shuttle stop area. Chicago has all it's shuttle busses routed to the same area, so I just called the phone numbers on the sides of the shuttle vans. All booked. Sigh. I finally just started asking the shuttle drivers and found one who had rooms available. So I took a midnight shuttle to a hotel I had no reservations for. But I was NOT sleeping in the airport! I'd come off a 12 hour flight from Narita, and spent another 9 hours in the airport and by golly, I WAS going to lie down on a bed!
United did give me this delightful "I'm sorry you are stuck for the night" water bottle.
But it was rather underwhelming. I guess if I was sleeping on a cot in the airport it would be a much more appreciated gift. Thank goodness I am an experienced traveller. I always pack a complete pair of clothing, so I had clean clothes (and my own deodorant) on hand for my unexpected overnight. I did sleep fairly well and was back at the airport at 10 in the morning, to see that my flight was already delayed. Sigh.
But I did make it to Little Rock. I did not arrive till 5pm, and despite the multiple assurances, my luggage was NOT there when I arrived. Fortunately, my awesome niece Katie was! She drove me the 3 hours up to my folks house and all was well..... my suitcase did arrive less than 24 hours later.
