traveling home through the vortex

home home home home home home

Only 15 and a half hours late, but who's counting?

Those of you who are acquainted with my weird travel karma (like Kim J) will not find the following account of my homeward sojourn at all surprising:

Right. Not only do we have the execution of a dictator which prompted raising the national security level to orange (and they repeatedly announced the security level at all the airports I was in), but we also have Mother Nature freaking out all over the place. Neither bodes well for the weary traveler.

Sydney to LA was fine - an additional security check of carry-on bags and a pat down right in front of the gate and a 14-hour flight - but otherwise, fine. I was seated facing the wall that holds two pull-down cribs, and that meant more leg room, which is always a plus. There was a couple seated next to me who had a baby son, and I must say, they were great with him. He didn't cry much at all, he smiled and giggled a lot, both parents took turns looking after him so each could eat or use the restroom or sleep or just have a break, and both sang to him when necessary to distract him.

I also watched An Inconvenient Truth, which was really good. In fact, it was so good, I watched it twice. Go here for more info, and for the love of heaven (not to mention Earth) go rent the film or get it from Netflix. It's well worth it. I missed it in the theaters due, ironically, to business travel.

We arrived in LA half an hour early, and were then stuck on the plane for an hour and 15 minutes because there was a plane in the gate that we were supposed to be pulling into, and that plane was having baggage problems, and apparently, there was no other gate for us to go to. So we finally get into the terminal, and I had to get my luggage because if you're coming into the US from out of the country, you have to get your bags and go through customs, and then re-check them for further domestic flights, so that took time. I check in for my flight to Baltimore, and find that my itinerary has changed, and I suddenly had another layover in Chicago, which is not good news when you've already been traveling for 14 hours.

So on to Chicago. Once at O'Hare, which I now suspect is some sort of vortex from which few emerge, my flight to BWI was on time for a few brief minutes, and then it was delayed, and then it was cancelled, due to the storm in Denver. Since it was weather-related and not the airline's fault, they would only offer a discount on an overnight hotel stay rather than paying for it entirely.

Why, you might ask, did I not try and get a flight on another airline? Have you BEEN to O'Hare lately? Do you KNOW how many people that place can hold? Do you REALIZE how silly and bloody stupid it would be to try and do that, when EVERYONE ELSE is trying to do the same thing? Besides, United refused to give me my luggage, and said it would be sent to BWI on their next available flight and would be waiting for me if I went on a different airline. Previous experience has shown me that it is unwise to get too far away from one's luggage, and honestly, sleeping horizontal in an actual bed instead of upright in a chair with a lot of noise, not to mention a shower, not to mention sustenance other than airport food, was really sounding appealing, even if I had to pay a discounted rate for those privileges. Mercifully, there were free shuttles to the hotels and back to the airport. Once I got into my room, I dropped everything on the floor, had a good cry and a shower and a pot of tea and went to bed.

This morning, I called the airline twice to make sure the flight was still scheduled, and it was, and was even going to be on time. I had a decent breakfast and another pot of tea, and I went to the airport again. I got through security (the lines for which looked eerily like what they were like when the new security procedures were first instituted) and got to my gate without rushing, and the first-class passengers were even starting to board, and it was all going sooooo well, and then they suddenly stopped boarding because the pilot had found some sort of mechanical problem that had to be fixed. Most of the people on this flight were the same ones who would have been on last night's flight, and groans were collectively let out. We were beginning to worry that this flight would be cancelled as well and the vortex would have us once and for all. So I sat on the floor and meditated with a crochet hook and some yarn (my mom taught me how to crochet left-handed while I was in Australia), and they managed to find us another plane, and so we escaped the vortex, and I only had the minor irritation of a guy sitting next to me who wouldn't shut up about the bloody obvious, but I managed to nip that in the bud by putting in earphones, firing up the i-pod, and letting Neil Gaiman read to me, bless him.

I finally got to BWI, got my luggage, got a cab, and got home. I was greeted by a pile of mail on my doorstep, and no cat, so I had another good cry, and started calling people to tell them I was really and truly home.