Saturday, January 21, 2012

And then there were 2

Please Afton, enough of the holding your feelings in already - I don't want you to get an ulcer or something. lol

Things got a little crazy Thursday night. Angel #2 had been s-l-o-w-l-y cleaning out her bedroom (which is always a disaster area) and trying to get her bags packed for Uruguay. She's a bit OCD, which makes everything more difficult. She was scheduled to leave around 1:30 Friday afternoon and we were planning on meeting Rent-a-Grandma for lunch near the airport around 11, so she was planning on busting her butt Friday morning to finish things up. Then, around 10 Thursday night, we get a call from hubs (who's still in Hawaii). He just got an e-mail from United saying her flight from Chicago to Washington DC was cancelled (predicted blizzard in Chicago for Fri aft). Hubs said he'd call United and try to get her rebooked somehow. About half an hour later, he called to say that she was rescheduled and would be flying out at 6am Friday morning. Yikes! She ended up doing some speed packing and didn't get to be until 12:30. We were up and out of the house at 4:15am Friday morning getting her to the airport, which was made especially fun because it was -7 degrees outside. I got her there about 5:15am, got her checked in and took off for home. WE and Angel #4 didn't know about the flight change and I didn't want them to get up for school, find me gone and freak out.

#2 called from Chicago to say she got there safely though her flight there had been delayed for half an hour. She then called at 9am to say that her flight scheduled to leave at 8:45 had mechanical problems and they were all sitting in the airplane waiting to take off. Finally, around 11, she called to say they were leaving. I was getting a little concerned, hoping they'd take off before the blizzard showed up and grounded them for good, but she said it had just started snowing when they left. Due to the morning flight change, she had a scheduled 10 hour layover in Washington, DC, which was shaved off by a few hours by the mechanical issued in Chicago. She contacted a friend of ours in DC who picked her up at the airport and gave her a quick tour of the city and took her to dinner during her layover, she said she had a great time. She'd always wanted to see DC, though not maybe quite so quickly. She called one last time to say she was back at the airport waiting to board her plane to Buenos Aires and that's the last I've heard from her since once she's out of the country, no more cell phone. She had a final flight from Argentina to Uruguay and is scheduled to arrive in about an hour and a half, so I'm hoping I hear from her soon so I know she's all safe and sound. This morning I got an e-mail from United that said: On behalf of United Airlines, we want to express our sincere apologies for your
experience with flight 847 on January 20, 2012.
They were offering some kind of compensation for flight difficulties. I assumed this was in response to the mechanical trouble in Chicago, until I saw that the flight number they were referring to was the one from DC to Buenos Aires, so now I'm really curious as to what the heck happened. Traveling is a pain in the butt, that's why I prefer to just stay home.

Things at home have been pretty chilly lately. The last couple days, temps haven't gotten to much about 5 degrees and frequently dipped to the negatives. I didn't realize how quickly you just get accustomed to the cold until this morning when I went out to shovel some snow off the deck. I grabbed a shovel and, just wearing a sweatshirt, I shoveled off the deck and the sidewalk leading to the garage. At the time, I was thinking how nice it was to have temps warm enough to go outside with just a sweatshirt, then I noticed the temperature outside was 10 degrees. Hardly balmy weather by anyone's estimation. Sheesh, Wisconsin sure has hardened me.

1 comment:

Adamsdarling said...

I hope Angel #2 enjoys her trip.