Monday, February 11, 2008

Three nights in my own bed in two and a half weeks...


My friends know I love to travel so I am not going to complain too much about the excessive amount of  traveling I’ve been doing. Right now I am in Atlanta, a city where I lived briefly after college. I truly belong here with all the people who freak out about driving in snow. I think the Michiganders who speed around me when I drive like a  granny in the snow would agree. Anyway, I am sitting here with my fantastic view of the Bank of America (i.e. my favorite building in the ATL), there is no snow falling or on the ground, I just drank some Sweetwater 420 (fave beer you can’t get that north of GA) and had dinner with one of my all time favorite people - so things are good. Getting back to my point, it was another travel day from hell.


I decided that my version of Dante’s circles of hell are:

1) Sitting in an airport with your flight continuously getting delayed while in a different time zone, nowhere comfortable to nap and all stores closed b/c it is the middle of the night (LAX last weekend).

2) Driving in snow (shocking, I know) where visibility is zero, you keep sliding if you go over ten miles per hour while everyone is passing you and you have to drive with your flashers on b/c you are afraid of rolling off the road and dying and there is no end in sight (Indy to GR trip Sunday - still a little keyed up from that one).

3) Sitting on an airplane with no way to escape (connecting flight to DTW today; flight from GRR to ORD to try to get to LAX last weekend).

So today I missed my connecting flight because the Detroit airport just couldn’t get a jetbridge to the plane. We were all stuck on the plane waiting for a jetbridge for over 20 minutes. My connection was a Delta/Northwest Airlines codeshare flight. I am not even going to get in to the details of my hour long back and forth runs between various NWA and Delta ticket counters but let me say this...it pushed me over the edge today.

Enough venting...time to get back to gazing out the window from the 33rd floor of the Marriott - taking in the fantastic night time view of one of my favorite cities!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

O'Hare's revenge

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The powers that be must read my blog. In 2007 I declared Chicago O'Hare the worst airport in America and I stand by that declaration.

This weekend they proved me right.

Due to snow in Chicago, I sat in a plane on the ground in Grand Rapids for four hours. Four hours on a plane with three seats across and three poor children under three on board.We never went back to the gate - we just sat and sat and sat while Chicago tried to deal with snow. Hmmm...that is like saying Seattle is on a ground stop because of rain...or LA because of sunshine. Ridiculous.

As a result, I missed my first connection, then missed my second connection after another hour. Finally, after a mad dash from the G gates to the K gates I made it on my third flight to LA. After a work filled and fun filled two and a half days, I prepared for the dreaded red eye flight home. I know the red eye results in me feeling like I drank a fifth of cheap gin the night before, but, work is busy so I have to do what I have to do.

Unfortunately, my flight to O'Hare was cancelled (weather), I was rebooked to an 11:55 p,m. flight that was delayed (due to Chicago weather) and finally departed LA at 2 a.m. Pacific Time. That is 5 a.m. Eastern Time! And I had to be in Michigan at work for a 12:30 meeting. I rolled in just as the meeting started and this wasn't just any old meeting, it was with upper management at work. I looked like hell and felt like hell.

Ironically, during this entire time LA was under a winter storm watch and rain was constantly pouring from the sky. Did a little rain slow down LAX? No. What is with Chicago? Listen O'Hare people, I beg you, get your act together! I have to fly through you too much to be delayed every time I have to fly through your stupid airport! Now, off to sleep!