Traveling Home

You would not believe the madness of my trip getting home during Christmas break! My trip started at 11am Thursday when I rode to the airport. I got to the airport where my flight was delayed every 20 minutes until 5:30pm when they finally decided to cancel due to fog in Oklahoma City. So I called my mom and the next available flight was SUNDAY!!!! I couldn’t believe it! So my roommate picked me up and we went back to our apartment. On Sunday I was driven back to the airport for the second round. I got to the airport at 8:30am where the lady couldn’t find my flight reservation, after calling my mom at 5:30am her time, the lady figured it out the problem without my mom’s help. I get to Dallas where my flight says “on time” on the monitor, but my mom calls and tells me it’s an hour delayed. It never ever changed to tell me it was delayed even after our flight was suppose to be departed. The plane we were supposed to get on finally lands, but they tell us the Seattle airport has halted all flights in and out. Disappointment again. So we sat there until 5:30pm when they say get on! So excited we get on only to find out there is a fuel leak and a mechanic needs to check it out and we only have 45 minutes to get going or they will stop our flight. Luckily there happened to be a mechanic on board and after about 15 minutes and one ruined jacket later he told us it was minor and we were safe to fly. Yay! Well… the flight attendants, mainly one, kept saying “it’s the worst weather Seattle has seen in 25 years so you better know the emergency procedures very well”. Well that sounds promising, now I’m calm!!! After two hours of flying the flight attendants call for a doctor or EMT. Apparently there was a 65 year old women on blood thinners who felt faint. I guess she was fine because they never said anymore. The rest of the flight wasn’t bad, my elbow was sore from sitting in the aisle seat, and some minor turbulence but it was bearable. So I made it to extremely snowy Seattle. Many prayers were offered up in thanks! I called my mom and she let me know I was going to have to stand in line and get a new ticket. I got to the line and it was ridiculous. It went around the whole airport!!! I stood in line for two hours when my mom called and said I got a ticket for the next morning at 10am. I was excited to leave the never ending line since I had hardly moved at all and I was exhausted, but sadly my mom said I had to stay in it to get my boarding pass. Then she called back and said I can print it on the kiosk so I got out of line, but they were shut down for the night. Someone told me the kiosk was going to open at 12am, so I decided to go get my bag, boy was that a mistake!!! Bags were everywhere! I searched and searched when finally a man got on a megaphone and told us our bags were still outside and would be flown to our final destination. I thought the man with the megaphone was going to be mauled! It was like a riot. I heard so many bad words flying. I felt so bad for the poor guy making the announcement; he did everything he could! Then I decided to check the kiosk since it was after 12, but no luck. I slept off and on on the floor. I felt like we were all bums congregating in one airport!!! At 1:30am I check the kiosk and 2am, and 2:30am, at about 3:30am I got back in line, but then I saw people using the kiosk at 4am and got back out of line again. I guess the fixed the kiosk and I got my boarding pass!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I sat at my gate, but people kept talking about how we’re going to be stuck here and I decided I better watch a movie or something. All the pessimistic people were starting to suck me into their negativity. I watched The Wizard of Oz. It’s kind of ironic that I decided to watch a movie about trying to get home! After I had been in the Seattle airport for 9 hours I finally was ready to board my plane home! Then the flight attendant tells us our plane isn’t in yet so we will fly on another one in another terminal, so we all get on the tram to a new concourse and get to our gate, then they change it again!!! I did get on the plane after it was delayed an hour since it changed gates so many times and needed cleaned. Then we sat at our gate for an hour waiting to be de-iced. Finally we were off and I made it home to my family and friends!!!!!!!!!! Now all of this doesn’t seem that bad if it didn’t all happen in one trip that ended up lasting from 8am Sunday to 3pm Monday. And I heard a lot of people who had it WAY worse than I did, but it’s interesting to me how every time I’ve flown nothing happens, maybe turbulence but nothing else. Even small things like gate changes started to feel major after going through this roller coaster of a trip!!! But God got me home and I am thankful!