The Trials and Tribulations of Travel

I had to cancel a lunch meeting due to flying out earlier than scheduled today, but I was able to schedule a breakfast for a much overdue meeting, so I did (@ 8am). Also, in an effort to save the company some money, I opted to take the Metro as far as I could towards BWI and then take a cab from there. So far, so good. My scheduled flights have me going through Denver to San Jose and I was supposed to get home at 4pm. The flight is smooth and all is going fine, despite my itching to be home with my family… they are all gathered already and I’m not there. So, we’re getting close to Denver and the pilot comes on the PA to say that he has some “bad news”… There is some weather we need to avoid and they have closed the runway we were supposed to come in on, so we’re going to have to loop around. At this point, he’s still not projecting us to be “too late” (mind you, I have 25-minutes to get my connection). And we just keep flying and flying. Next thing you know he tells us that we are now short fuel and we’re going to have to make a pit-stop in Colorado Springs to fuel-up. By the time we get to Denver, I’ve missed my connection by 1.5 hours and the flight they re-booked me on doesn’t leave for 5 hours! And, to add insult to injury, I got a B number (slumming it for us A-Listers). My phone rings about an hour before I’m supposed to leave and it’s SWA letting me know what? Oh, yes, we’re delayed! By the time I get to my parent’s house I will have been traveling for roughly 18 hours. NOT the way I wanted to spend this time by any stretch.

Planes, trains, and automobiles is a great movie, but I sure don’t want to live it. And, although I’m not looking forward to tomorrow, I sure am looking forward to seeing my family – this week was successful for me in DC, but it’s a bit of a blur. It was hard… but tomorrow will be harder.