Day 7
The airline trip from hell (a.k.a. I hate Northwest Airlines).
It's 5:00 a.m. The sun has yet to come up over the desert. Why are we up? Because we have an 8:15 flight out of Reno heading back to St. Louis (via Minneapolis/St. Paul). We're not terribly thrilled, but such is life. We drive to Carson, drop Rosa off at Victor and Macariah's place (where she goes back to sleep for a while), then head on for Reno.
7:00 a.m. We arrive at the airport in Reno, some of the first customers of the day for Northwest Airlines.
8:15 a.m. We board the plane.
9:00 a.m. We deboard the plane -- something about a warning light not going off. They decide it would be easier to work on if we weren't on the plane. As we're sitting there waiting, a guy across the aisle developes a rather severe nosebleed. The airport sends 2 medics to treat him, 1 guy to watch the medics, 1 cop to make sure there's no hanky panky going on, and 1 biohazard disposal guy to cart the potentially deadly contamination away (did I mention the ambulance waiting on standby outside the airport?). Good thing that didn't happen on the plane -- all he'd have gotten was a couple of Kleenex.
10:15 a.m. They still can't fix the plane, they need a new circuit breaker -- that happens to be in Seattle. They're sending it down, but it won't arrive until well after noon.
10:45 a.m. "The part will be in sooner, so please don't leave the airport" I turn to the guy next to me and say that they're putting a lot of faith in that part, what if it doesn't work either? Maybe they should have sent another plane.
11:05 a.m. They announce the plane whole and ready to fly (without the wonder part from Seattle). Several passengers had been given meal vouchers (there was some bizarre criteria you had to meet first), and they had to be rounded up -- as it was we left without some of them. 3 hours after we first board the plane, we finally get on to leave.
11:34 a.m. We head for the runway, and I set my watch back to Central Time -- it is now 1:34 p.m., aren't time zones fun?
2:00 p.m. breakfast time
3:20 p.m. Our original connecting flight is leaving the twin cities of St. Paul/Minneapolis heading for St. Louis. We aren't on it, we're somewhere over South Dakota, too far north to see Mt Rushmore.
4:20 p.m. We touch down.
4:30 p.m. After taxiing to the far end of the airport, we stop. I turn to my wife and say,"What do you want to bet our connecting flight is at the opposite end of the terminal?" I check with the ticket agent outside the gate for the next flight to St. Louis -- 4:50 p.m. Gate 20a, Gold concourse.
4:51 p.m. I arrive (breathless) at the opposite end of the terminal and find the flight long gone. The next flight is at 6:45, but it's already running 15 minutes late. After noticing my obviously excitable state, she offered us meal vouchers. I apologized profusely, and thanked her for being the first genuinely helpful Northwest employee I had run into since the first ticket agent who got us on TWA (She had red hair, and I think her name was Jackie -- be nice if you ever see her).
6:15 p.m. We should be driving north towards home, our trunk packed with Missouri fireworks for the upcoming 4th holiday -- instead we're waiting in another boarding area waiting for our already late plane.
7:00 p.m. We prepare to board our flight to St. Louis -- the anouncer calls for passengers with small children, so we start working our way over, but he aparently doesn't notice us coming, so he starts everyone else on. We climb over several people and finally get into our seats for the flight (almost) home.
7:55 p.m. We're still waiting on the taxiway to takeoff. Aparently another plane declared an emergency just before it was our turn to takeoff, so we have to wait for him to land (it was a picture perfect landing incidentally). Had we not been 15 minutes late to begin with, we wouldn't be an hour and 10 minutes late now.
8:25 p.m. The pilot turns off the seatbelt sign -- not that it matters, the idiots around us have been moving around for the past 15 minutes -- going to the bathroom, removing heavy luggage from the overhead compartments and changing seats (all of course while the plane is still climbing at a very noticable angle, and bouncing quite a bit). But, since both flight attendants went up to first class, and pulled the curtain, they never saw the dance recital going on in coach.
8:35 p.m. Seat belts on. Aparently the trajectory from St. Paul to St. Louis is semi ballistic in nature -- as soon as you reach your highest altitude, it's time to start back down.
8:45 p.m. Some bimbo has chosen this as a prime time to flood the cabin with her perfume (want to smell pretty for Big Daddy in St Louie I guess). I spend the remainder of the flight gasping for breath.
9 something p.m. All I know is that we're on the ground, and the Bi*** with the perfume is gone. And, after 30 minutes waiting at the baggage carousel, we find that my wife's suitcase is gone as well. We visit the lost luggage department, and give as complete a description of the suitcase as we can, get a number to call (non 800 of course) and finally find the shuttle back to the parking lot. Too late for fireworks, too late for anything but the long drive home.
Midnight (or so) We're home now.
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