We made it home, eventually
We had Christmas! It was good.
So, when I left off from our journey, we had been defeated by our attempt to drive home from Boise, and had returned to Boise. When our flight was canceled, they offered us a rebooking on a 9:30 PM flight the next day, but we canceled instead and tried the drive. By the time we had changed our minds, the earliest we could get home together was on Christmas Eve morning, around 9:30 AM.
The lesson I tried to take away from it was one of peace and serenity, of not trying to influence fate, of letting things happen as they happen. But still, the next morning, I was antsy and wanting to try and fix things. I went to the store. I made a snow duck by the pond. Eventually, I called Alaska's customer care line (not the reservations line, which was busy and not accepting any new calls). After 20 minutes on hold, I got a guy on the phone.
"Can you get to the airport RIGHT NOW?" he asked me.
"YES. YES!" I sputtered.
So we frantically threw our stuff back in the bags (I had chosen that time to back up my computer and the hard drive was in the bottom of my backpack, called Tyler's uncle away from baking Christmas cookies, and got to the airport. Again. It took us ages to check in because they were busy dealing with everybody who had been planning to fly to anywhere in California that day, all canceled. This was mostly because Alaska employees had been working overtime and then were not legally permitted to fly.
Our flight hung in there. It was delayed twice, not due to weather, not due to crew problems, but to mechanical issues. But we had a plane, and we had a crew, and nearly 3 hours later, we actually boarded an aircraft. I was a nervous wreck the entire time we were at the airport and spent most of it lying on the floor staring into space. I was nervous when we boarded the plane. I was nervous when we sat on the runway. I was nervous when we were flying, because they could still turn us away...but they didn't. The irony is that the 9:30 PM flight we would have been on later that day if we hadn't tried to drive was canceled.
We got some gift certificates to McCormick and Schmick's, I drank lots of fluids, and we touched down in the morass of Sea-Tac around 9:30 PM. We waded through acres of luggage at baggage claim without incident and eventually made it onto a shuttle. Shuttle Express wasn't going to any residential addresses due to the deep snow (and a number of drivers not coming back when they tried it the previous day), so we got dropped off at a grocery store a half-mile from my house and just walked home.
To recap, here is how I got home:
*Bush plane
*Car
*Bus
*Car
*Plane (failed)
*Taxi
*Walk
*Car
*Plane (failed)
*Rental car (failed)
*Taxi
*Car
*Plane (success!)
*Airport shuttle
*Walk
So, when I left off from our journey, we had been defeated by our attempt to drive home from Boise, and had returned to Boise. When our flight was canceled, they offered us a rebooking on a 9:30 PM flight the next day, but we canceled instead and tried the drive. By the time we had changed our minds, the earliest we could get home together was on Christmas Eve morning, around 9:30 AM.
The lesson I tried to take away from it was one of peace and serenity, of not trying to influence fate, of letting things happen as they happen. But still, the next morning, I was antsy and wanting to try and fix things. I went to the store. I made a snow duck by the pond. Eventually, I called Alaska's customer care line (not the reservations line, which was busy and not accepting any new calls). After 20 minutes on hold, I got a guy on the phone.
"Can you get to the airport RIGHT NOW?" he asked me.
"YES. YES!" I sputtered.
So we frantically threw our stuff back in the bags (I had chosen that time to back up my computer and the hard drive was in the bottom of my backpack, called Tyler's uncle away from baking Christmas cookies, and got to the airport. Again. It took us ages to check in because they were busy dealing with everybody who had been planning to fly to anywhere in California that day, all canceled. This was mostly because Alaska employees had been working overtime and then were not legally permitted to fly.
Our flight hung in there. It was delayed twice, not due to weather, not due to crew problems, but to mechanical issues. But we had a plane, and we had a crew, and nearly 3 hours later, we actually boarded an aircraft. I was a nervous wreck the entire time we were at the airport and spent most of it lying on the floor staring into space. I was nervous when we boarded the plane. I was nervous when we sat on the runway. I was nervous when we were flying, because they could still turn us away...but they didn't. The irony is that the 9:30 PM flight we would have been on later that day if we hadn't tried to drive was canceled.
We got some gift certificates to McCormick and Schmick's, I drank lots of fluids, and we touched down in the morass of Sea-Tac around 9:30 PM. We waded through acres of luggage at baggage claim without incident and eventually made it onto a shuttle. Shuttle Express wasn't going to any residential addresses due to the deep snow (and a number of drivers not coming back when they tried it the previous day), so we got dropped off at a grocery store a half-mile from my house and just walked home.
To recap, here is how I got home:
*Bush plane
*Car
*Bus
*Car
*Plane (failed)
*Taxi
*Walk
*Car
*Plane (failed)
*Rental car (failed)
*Taxi
*Car
*Plane (success!)
*Airport shuttle
*Walk