Monday, December 21, 1998
11:11 AM
Well, I made it... I was beginning to wonder late last night though. I encountered a string of minor catastrophes, but in the end, everything worked out just fine. Except now I'm trying to get used to a "flat" keyboard again, after using my ergonomic one for months. It feels cramped, but I'm already growing used to it again.
Do you really want to hear about my trip? *chuckle* Okay, if you insist....
Mom wanted to head out yesterday around 11, and I guess it was a good thing... in a way. Or not... I'll let you decide. We got six or seven miles out of town, and encountered a wreck. But not just any wreck.... at the top of a hil, an old pickup and a van had collided, and the van went up in flame. And this was on a two-lane road, the only road we know of that goes down to Interstate 70 without making a major detour. But some other people apparently knew a way around it on little gravel backroads, so we followed them and came out about four or five miles south of the accident, and were back on track. Total delay, only about 30 minutes.
The rest of the drive to St. Louis was fairly uneventful, and I had Mom drop me off at curbside and head back home, so she wouldn't have to drive much in the dark, if at all. I had a couple hours to kill yet, so I checked my bags at the curb, went inside and got my boarding passes, and headed downstairs to the gates, and the restroom.
On the way to the restroom I saw a Pretzel Time, so I decided to come back and grab a bite... a pretzel and cheese sauce to dip it in, and I sat down in the nearest seat and took my time, watching the people pass. There were a LOT of kids, all dressed up in their holiday best.
After my little snack (which turned out to be a good thing, since I never did stop for a meal yesterday), I headed down to my gate and worked on repacking my satchel, which Mom had overstuffed with a big "shoebox" of cookies and candies and nut breads. When she'd asked me if a shoebox would be okay, I thought of the normal sized shoebox -- you know, the kind like you get tennies in or whatever. Wrong! She used the box I got my booties in, so it was about twice as big as I'd expected, and I didn't really leave that much room in it. But after some repacking, everything fit and the satchel zipped. I had my CD player and discs (and fortunately a whole BUNCH of batteries, since the ones in the player were dead), and listened to music and watched the kids goof off until it was time to board the plane.
I hate DC-9s, especially when I wind up sitting in the back, by the engines. Which of course, I did. But I survived, did a couple crosswords and just kinda dozed. It was a fairly short flight, just a little over an hour, and when I got off the plane in Detroit, I had little trouble getting a wheelchair escort to take me to my next flight.
I got to the "G" terminal and went down the escalator to the gates, found my gate and was just going to sit down when I decided to doublecheck my ticket. It wasn't there. I had just had it a few minutes before, so I checked both my bags twice, and it still didn't show up. I was going to backtrack, but I realized I'd probably left it in the electric cart I'd ridden over in, and backtracking would do me little good. The passenger assistance station was right there at gate 8, so I got in line and when I got up and said I'd lost my ticket, they said they had it, and asked for ID. That was easy... So one more minor disaster averted.
I had an e-ticket and I figured if worst came to worst they could probably print me another boarding pass if I just showed them proper ID, it was just the baggage claim tickets I was worried about, and of course that really didn't matter in Charleston. *chuckle*
Okay, so I got to gate 8, had my ticket, and was ready to relax for a couple hours, until my plane was ready to go, right? Well.... It's never that easy. I noticed the sign up by the door didn't have my flight listed. So I went back to the monitors to check where my flight was supposed to leave from. Gate 12. So I sat at Gate 12 for a while. But the sign by gate 12 didn't list my flight either, so I asked at the counter. Oh, that flight's going out of gate 8. Gate 8 said 12. By this time, I had a few other people going back and forth with me, so I didn't feel entirely foolish. We finally got settled at gate 8 when they made an official announcement... the flight was leaving out of gate 12. So we traipsed over to gate 12, and by then there weren't any seats left, so I settled in by the window to wait. They said the flight would board at 8:40. Yeah, sure it did!
Before we even got the whole gate issue settled, they'd announced that all the flights leaving from the G terminal were to be 'weather advised'... and if they couldn't land in their destination cities, they would bring the passengers back to Detroit. Oh joy....
Well, first the weather advisory, then the inbound planes weren't able to land because Detroit was blanketed in fog. We had about an hour's delay, and I had just sat down on the floor to wait when they announced that our plane would be ready to board in about fifteen minutes.
We finally got on our plane, and I dozed a little off and on, and we finally got into Charleston around 11:30, an hour late. But we got there, and Jev was waiting at the window and waved as I was walking across the tarmac.
We got my bags and on the way, and we stopped at Hardees for a bite to eat because the pretzel and a couple pop tarts were all I'd eaten but airplane snacks. We encountered a lot of fog on our way home, but we made it safely, and finally got in around two.
And now I'm here and we're both happy, and we're heading off for his interview here as soon as I get my act together, so I'll type to you tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday, depending on how the weather cooperates for our drive home.
