I took a recent vacation to go to my Godparents’ daughter’s wedding in Wisconsin. I learned that sometimes flying can be very stressful this trip.

Friday

I was set to fly out on the 23rd at 8:40am. Thursday night I received an automated phone call from Northwest saying that a flight was canceled and that they had changed my flights for Friday. I was then suppose to fly from Bozeman to Minneapolis to Detroit to Green Bay starting at 1:41pm on Friday. When I got to the airport Friday  I was told that the flight coming into Bozeman was late, which was no big deal, except when she said that it was late enough that I would miss my connecting flight to Detroit. Then I had the option of either staying in Detroit that night or flying out Saturday morning and getting in at 2:30pm. I elected not to cuddle with airport furniture and stay in Bozeman. Of course I had to call Mel back to the airport after she had made it all the way back to Bozeman, how fun.

Saturday

Forgot that I had a knife in my backpack, which when it was pulled out by TSA my response was, “Thats not good huh.” Good thing they are pretty relaxed in Bozeman. They gave the knife to Mel and then began to search for more stuff as my plane was being boarded. The actual flights went well this time except I realized that the wedding was at 3pm not 4pm like I had thought. So I ended up missing the wedding, but I made it to the Reception where I met a bunch of old friends of my Mom’s. It was cool seeing my Mom and Dad for even the brief time that I did got to see them.

Sunday

Zach’s birthday was today, which means I got to see almost all my Aunts and Uncles, which is always fun. I’ll break this day down into a quick synopsis

Wake up

Church

People show up

Food

Make fun of Dad for sleeping in the chair

I fall asleep in chair

Food

Packers win

People leave

Food

Fall asleep on couch during Yankees game

Wake up Yankees up 3-1

Snooze

Yankees up 5-3

Snooze

Yankees win pennant

Monday

Slept in a bit and when Dad got home we cleaned out the gutters and put in the anti-leave things in the gutters. Then we re-matted the church pew kneelers. Picked up Zach from school and then played a little Wii.

Tuesday

Woke up early and took Zach to school and then headed to work with Dad. We had to go over to a guy’s house and take his car back to the shop to have the tire looked at. The guy was adamate that he was in dire need of getting his car back ASAP or he would starve. Odd, but we got it back to him in like 20 minutes. Dad and I then went to Office Max and then Culver’s where I learned that sometimes walking 100 yards is just as fast as trying to drive the 100 yards and trying to find a parking spot that ends up only being about 50 yards from where you last parked.

Zach has built a 4 hole golf course in their back yard so Dad and I wasted some time hitting some balls around and then went and picked up Zach. We then came back and played the 4 holes. Its a pretty cool course and I hope that next time maybe there are 5 or 6 holes

Later that night we drove up to Green Bay to have dinner and walk around St. Norbert’s College where Danny goes. I also got to meet his new GF.

Wednesday

Woke up around 8 as Comcast was going to install cable internet into the house. When the guy got there we tried to get him to push the cable through the cold air ducting down to the basement, which became impossible because of the unknown paths that the ducting takes. It doesn’t necessarily follow the path that makes the most sense. Eventually he just ran it ouside the house. I got the ‘this is how you connect the modem’ talk from the installer which I nodded to everything just to make him let me on the computer quicker. I should have just said, I think I can handle it just give me the login, but its more fun to act like you don’t know anything.

Now the true adventure comes.

My flight was suppose to leave Green Bay at  5pm and arrive in Minneapolis at around 6:17. Then from Minneapolis at 10pm and get into Bozeman at 11:41pm. When we arrived at the airport we looked at the Arrival/Departure monitor and immediatly I saw cancelled on a flight and it was mine. Ohh, joy. The monitor said Weather related, however, the front desk people said it was due to construction! There was only 1 runway open in Minneapolis. Umm, I’ve never worked for an airline before, but it seems like you might want more than 1 open in one of the largest hubs in the country. So we ask her if I can fly out of Appleton or Milwaukee to get to Bozeman. She says there is no way, but she can get me on a flight tomorrow or I can fly into Denver, stay the night and catch the 8am flight into Bozeman. So we accept that and take the customer support number from her, cuz that is not cool. We drive to Appleton where I check into the United desk. Kathy finds out there is a Delta flight out of Appleton to Minneapolis that is taking off in 40 minutes! WHAT! Why did the lady in Green Bay not tell me this? So we ask him if I can get on it. He says that its stanby only right now and there ar 46 out of 49 people checked in with a waiting list of 5 people. I ask him to be put on it, but that means that I have to go to United and have them take me off all the flights that I was booked on and then transfer control to Delta which I may or may not get on. So I tell him that I’m going to run through security and see how many people are actually at the gate waiting. It takes like 7 minutes to get through security and I run to the Gate where they have boarded already. I ask the guy there what he can do and he says that I have 2 minutes to talk to a United rep to switch my tickets to them. NO UNITED PEOPLE ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND! I run back to the Delta gate and ask him to call or do something and he replies, “Just closed the gates.” REALLY?!!?! Thanks for not trying at all to help me.

So I’m still stuck sleeping in Denver. Now I find out that my flight coming into Appleton is super late. Its suppose to leave at 6:45 and get into Chicago at like 7:30. Then I leave Chicago for Denver at 8:52. Well what happens is I leave Appleton at 7:55 and get in at 8:30 on the opposite side of the airport that my Denver flight is leaving. Adrenaline is pumping pretty good right now. I run the wrong way in the airport because they suck at marking which way is which. I finally find the shuttle that goes, luckily for me, right to my gate. Waiting, waiting, waiting finally shuttle arrives. I get on the shuttle and get over to where it lets me off. The lady in front of me is obviously not in a hurry stepping up on each step with both feet before stepping up on the next. I finally push past her and run up the steps as I hear, “Last call for passenger Vallard.” I yell, OMG thats me wait. I run up to the guy and he says that he was literally just about to close the doors. I get stuck behind the exit seats and have just enough room for my femur to dig into the back of the seat in front of me. No you cannot lean your seat back without crushing my bones! Now all I can think about is how unawesome it is going to be cuddling next to a post or airport seat all night. We arrive in Denver and I check the Arrivals/Departures screen.

Under departures I find

Delta Flight XXXX Bozeman 9:00PM DELAYED – Estimated Departure  – 11:14 Gate B83

I’m at Gate B11 and it’s 10:35pm. Time to run from one side of the airport to the other side. I get there probably looking like I just escaped alcatraz and whimper “Can you please put me on this flight?”

They say they can put me on stanby. Well there is a glimmer of hope. I then notice that the plane hasn’t even arrived which is cool. After about 15 minutes they finally get me on the stanby list, something to do with being checked in already or something.

I wait another 30 minutes and they get me a seat. So amazing, I no longer have to cuddle with airport furnature tonight and the cheese might make it back. I don’t remember anything after they finished de-icing the plane. I apparently blacked out from all the stress and running around from the day, which was good because I usually don’t sleep on planes.

I arrived in Bozeman at around 2 AM and Mel took me home.

Conclusion:

Make sure that the airline you fly on isn’t doing construction on any of the airports you are flying through, or at least they are not shutting down all but 1 runway like idiots.