What an end to the week! Snow, heat, fax machine fiascos, numerous flight rebookings and many hours later I am back in Denver.
It started on Thursday morning with the continually-overhyped spring storm (weather forecasters here are awful), the one that would dump a foot of snow or more. Ha! I woke up, went to my pilates class, returned to get ready and then departed for the airport around 7am to catch my 9:40am flight to Atlanta, where I would be speaking at a seminar on Friday morning.
When I left for pilates at 5:15am the roads were fine. It was snowing and they were wet but no traction issues. By the time I returned around 6:30am they were getting a little slushy and our car with the bald tires was sliding a little. By 7am, the roads were treacherous. It took me 20 minutes to get from the entrance to our neighborhood up the road one intersection to Quebec. It's seriously like less than 100 yards. Ugh.
The rest of the trip was not much better. Cars were sliding off the road. A good number of wrecks. 30 mph and under the entire 35 miles to the airport. Fun times. In one spot, they even had E-470, the loop, completely shut down for 6 miles due to a wreck. Thankfully, it was the traffic heading the opposite direction that was stopped. It always makes me nervous when the 4-wheel drive, heavy SUVs start sliding off the road and I am in a 2-wheel drive tiny little Prism with bald tires!
By the time I got to the airport, my knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel and I had knots in my shoulders from the stress of driving. I breathed a huge sigh of relief upon parking the car and headed toward security.
After getting through security, I stopped to check the flight status. Due to the weather, I expected some flight delays. However, my flight was about the only flight in the whole listing of probably 300 flights that was delayed - and delayed by a whole hour at that, which means I would miss the connection in Cleveland. So proceed to try to get rebooked. They put me on a later flight out of Cleveland that afternoon, which meant that I would get to Atlanta three hours later than originally planned. At least I would get there.
On arriving in the Cleveland airport, I set out to find a fax machine. I had proofread a time-sensitive document for work on my first flight and needed to get it transferred to my office. I started by checking into the Continental Club and asking them if they have a fax machine (they have always had a business center with fax machines in every club I've ever been to). The lady at check-in said no, they did not have a fax machine and sent me three terminals across the airport to a "business center," which was no longer in business. Great. I then checked with the police officer outside security, which had me pick up the courtesy phone to call information - ext. 6303 - except that the "3" didn't work on that phone. I then had to go searching for another courtesy phone and finally found one halfway across the airport.
Information knew that the business center had gone out of business but thought the money exchange booth next door to the out-of-business "business center" might send a fax. Back all the way across the airport to encounter an employee with a terrible attitude who would not send a fax, even though there was a fax machine sitting right next to him. I haven't dealt with someone with such a bad attitude in a long time. In fact, he wasn't courteous enough to even get off the phone (personal call) for me or the whole line of customers in front of me. Finally, I gave up, called work and told them this fax wasn't going to happen and headed back to the Club I started at. When I checked in this time, I was complaining about how there wasn't a darn fax machine in the whole airport - I mean with all the business travelers, come on! The check in lady said, "but we have one inside." I about strangled her before I went and sent the fax!!
Having left snow in the morning, I arrived to a beautiful Atlanta sunset and temperatures of about 80 degrees. Wow. 60 degree temperature difference from when I started that morning and it wasn't even the heat of the day in Atlanta. People were looking at me like I was from another planet, since I was carrying a huge wool coat around with me. "You must be from the Northeast or something..."
When booking travel for this trip, I did a little research on ground transportation and was told that a cab fare from the airport to my hotel ran about $30. Renting a car for the day would be $70, plus the cost of gas, so I declined to rent and figured I would take a cab. While in line for the cab, I asked the guy organizing the cabs to confirm the cost. He told me it would be $50 at least - one way. Ugh. 8pm and trying to figure out alternate transportation arrangements. I ended up finding a shuttle that would get me to the hotel for about the same price as I had been told originally. By the time I arrived at the hotel and got dinner (last meal was 7:30am that morning), I was exhausted. It was definitely one of those days!
Friday's day of travel wasn't much better. I checked in online in the morning and all was well. By the time I finished my presentation, I had an alert that stated that my flight to Houston had been delayed by an hour, which would mean I would again miss my connecting flight. Since the flight I would be connecting to was the last Denver flight of the day, I would get stranded in Houston for the night.
I immediately packed up and headed to the airport about 5 hours early in hopes of catching an earlier flight and making it home. After getting through security, I checked the flight status screens and noticed that a 2:30 flight to Houston had been delayed (it was about 2:45pm at this point). It was boarding so I headed straight to the gate only to miss it by about a minute and a half. I then checked in with the Continental agents who tried to put me on the next flight out (which also had a significant delay - and the weather was only expected to get worse and the delays longer as the day went on). They finally ended up rebooking me on a Delta direct flight to Denver at 7pm that evening.
Since it was only about 3pm at that point, I took the ticket (not boarding pass, but an actual paper ticket - haven't seen one of those in forever) and headed over to the Delta gates to see if I could catch an earlier flight (what were the chances with the American Airlines fiasco and associated rebookings going on). Amazingly, I got a seat on the 4:20pm direct flight to Denver (albeit a seat in the very last row of the aircraft). The flight would actually have me home in Denver before I was originally scheduled to leave Atlanta - not bad for all the chaos and flight shifting of the day. Before it was all over, I even managed to get an aisle seat (my preference) a little farther forward in the cabin (and away from the bathrooms that are all too popular on longer flights).
Flying Delta was a new experience. They "switched equipment" on the gate agents about 5 minutes before the flight departed. All the sudden a bunch of people's seats disappeared - like rows 18 and 19 somehow didn't exist on the new plane. The gate agents amazingly didn't realize the implications of the change until after they actually started boarding the aircraft. People started coming back off the plane when they discovered their seat didn't exist or someone else was in it. They were having to redo a ton of seat assignments. A bunch of unhappy travelers. It was a disaster. Then the plane was probably 90 degrees when we boarded. Sweating... profusely. Everyone was uncomfortable.
I also haven't flown Delta since they implemented their "flight attendants as pushy door-to-door salesmen" routine. Man I like airlines that still serve you free (although small) "meals," offer complimentary beverage service and aren't hawking their wares the entire flight. Airlines are pushing for revenue anywhere they can get it nowadays. Two passengers across the aisle from me almost got into a fist fight on the way home - seriously. The flight navigation (can you say turbulence?) and equipment (thought it was going to fall apart with all the creaking and squealing on the way to the gate) left a lot to be desired, but at least I was home.
When I walked out of the Denver airport, I was greeted by cool air and an ominous cloud over all of Denver metro. It started snowing about halfway home. Great... We got somewhere between 4 and 6 inches of snow at the house while I was melting in 80 degree Atlanta. What a bizarre week! I'm just thankful to be safe and at home and will try to avoid spring travel as much as possible in the future. :)
