Another Road Trip

We're getting ready for a little trip to Arizona again - since we missed Christmas there we decided to go for 'birthday' season instead. Here's hoping the weather holds as it has been and we can get through the mountain passes without incident.

Having grown up in Arizona where weather basically doesn't interfere with anything, I have had trouble all my life adjusting to the notion that weather can, in fact, REALLY mess up your plans. When I lived in Alaska there were more trips that ended in delays and cancellations than trips that went off without a hitch. And even when we lived in Oregon and tried to drive down to Arizona over Christmas we were occasionally met with road closures and icy conditions. (I thought that an interstate highway would be maintained sufficiently that this couldn't happen - but boy was I wrong!)

So I've been thinking about past travel disasters. And there have been a few.

The first year in Alaska that we tried the Arizona-at-Christmas trip should have been the warning I heeded about travel - it was with a baby and an Irish Setter. In the stopover in Seattle (overnight) the airport was so busy and full of people that it was very difficult to hang on to a baby and a dog - and some kind woman came along just as the baby was slipping out of my arms while the dog was pulling me to the door and offered - of all things - to take the baby. Well, that wasn't going to happen! She was so earnest in her offer to help that there was a little tug of war there until she realized that maybe she could help with the dog instead because I sure wasn't handing the baby over to a stranger in a crowded terminal! That was the trip where weather caused our plane to overfly our destination and we ended up, after a full day of up and down flying - with the baby throwing up each time - in Ketchikan. The dog had to stay the night at the airport (we came back to the terminal first thing in the morning to find her crate open and her missing - but the first airline employees had rescued her, taken her out for a run, and were sharing donuts and coffee with her in the back room) and we walked to the nearest hotel and tried to find diapers and baby food - I was not prepared, as I should have been, for such a delay. The next day we all boarded the plane again, taxied out to the runway, sat there for several hours, and returned to the airport - bad weather again. We had to go looking for more diapers and baby food. The next day we tried again - no luck again. More diapers and baby food. We ended up taking the ferry that night and finally got home.

On another trip - this time trying to get home to Portland - there was an ice storm and all flights were cancelled. It was 4 more days before we were actually able to get another flight.

One time I was directed to the wrong 'bus' in the huge LA airport and ended up in the wrong terminal just at flight time.

When we tried to go to Wisconsin, through Chicago's O'Hare airport several years ago, we missed our connection due to weather and had to stay over in Chicago that night, finally getting to Wisconsin after the event we were trying to attend was over. (They won't let you retrieve your luggage in such circumstances - so we were in yesterday's clothes and just a mess when we finally did arrive to meet a bunch of relatives I'd never met before. Oh yes, that was the icing on the cake.) We missed the connecting flight on the way home too - also because of a rainstorm - and had to overnight in Chicago again. (Or maybe THAT was the icing on the cake.) That WAS the most miserable trip on record!

And people wonder why we don't fly anymore.

So - road trip! I'm excited. Let's hope for decent weather.