Well, we made our annual pilgrimage back to upstate NY last week. It kinda started out with a thud. Our first day was so bad it gets its own post. We leave on Friday the 20th. As usual our plan is to fly during Morhéa nap and thus an easier flight. We pick her up at daycare around noon and head to the airport around 12:30 PM. We get to the airport and the Pike Peak parking is full. For those of you that don’t live hear in Denver the airport is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is a new airport but from my house it seems like it is in Kansas. It is around 35 – 40 miles from my house to the airport. The other parking lot that doesn’t cost more then $15 a day is called Mt. Elbert. I have never seen this parking lot before. It turns out it is basically an overflow parking lot for the Pikes Peak lot. It really isn’t that much further away it just sits in the middle of nothing. They haven’t updated anything in it. No fancy gates and high tech machines. Just one old shack with some very frantic attendants trying to keep up with a large stream of cars. They have one register and one credit card machine and 20 – 30 cars waiting to get in. We pay and park and get on our bus to take us to the airport. We must have been some of the earliest customers because there were maybe 100 cars in a lot that might fit 1000+. It turns out that we park at stop #3. The first 2 didn’t have any cars near them so we were the 1st ones on. Actually the lot was pretty full from our spot to the end so 99% of the people waiting got on at our stop. I am not really sure what our driver was thinking but he pretty much stopped at the next 8 stops in a row with zero people waiting at them at proceeded to wait at each stop for 5 minutes. It was like some kind of cruel joke or something! I thing the 2 buses behind us passed us while we were waiting. At one point I looked out the window and there wasn’t a car within 600 yards of us but our driver was standing outside the bus waiting for anyone to park in our vicinity.
We finally get to the airport and check in our bags within 10 minutes of us getting there. We go to the security check and it is a zoo! I think I read in Newsweek that Denver is in the top 10 worst airports to fly out of as far as waits are concerned. I have no idea why. They seem to move along efficiently but there must be a larger volume then people to work the lines or something. On this particular day there was a boy scout camp that had ended in Colorado. Somewhere in the mountains of Colorado thousands of boy scouts must have gathered to do boy scout things (I gave up after cub scouts so I don’t really know what they do?) So 50% of the kids in front of us (90% of the 50 right in front of us in line) are boy scouts. Now what does every good boy scout have with him????? That’s right!!! A KNIFE!!! That meant that the 40 people in front of us got their bags screened 3 times along with full body searches. I can’t even tell you how long we were in line but it seemed like 2 hours.
At this point I am getting a little nervous about missing our boarding. We get through and end up at our gate right at our boarding time of 2:40 or something. As we pull up there seems to be a slightly panicked feel to the crowd and then I hear the dreaded words, “I think our flight is cancelled!” I think I immediately freaked out but a minute late a lady with the premier club status says we are okay because our plane is broken and they are fixing it and we are scheduled to take off at 4:00 instead of 3:00. Praise the Lord!! Well, at 3:30 they switch it to 4:00 and at 4:00 they switch it to 6:00. Now at this point we are in trouble because we have already missed our connecting flight to Rochester. I wait in a 20 minute line for some annoying and irritated lady to ask me where I was going. Once I told her she gave an annoying look, tore off a piece of paper and told me to call the number. Now, wouldn’t it have been a little easier to walk the line and give anyone with a connecting flight a piece of paper with a number? Anyway, we call it and they tell us that we are going to miss our flight to Rochester and need to rebook it and of coarse all of the morning and early afternoon flights are sold out. Kim loses it and takes the phone out of my hands and takes charge. At my request she books her and Morhéa on a 7:45AM flight to Syracuse and I agree to fly a 2:00 PM flight to Rochester (Dad has a spare car and Carolyn had a spare car seat so I needed both but Syracuse was the first leg of the trip). Problem #1 solved!
We wait there until 5:30 and they push our flight back to 7:00PM. Northwest is right across the terminal from us and their flight had trouble and they were delayed a little more then an hour and they gave everyone food vouchers while they waited. American Airlines didn’t give anyone anything. The entire time we can see our plane on the tarmac being fixed. 7:00 roles around and they push it to 8:30PM. Now this stinks because at 8:30 we were supposed to be landing in Rochester and we haven’t gotten off the ground in Denver. Morhéa was a saint. She played in DIA for 6+ hours and hadn’t lost it. We finally get off the ground (by the way our plane has been sitting on the gound for 7 hours now and it is about 110 degrees in the cabin.) and think Morhéa will pass out but the entire time we spent in the airport we promised her that we could watch Shrek once we took off. (Another side note – the pilot informs us that the problem with the aircraft was that the hydraulics were shot and they had to replace them! Seems like something they may want to test out before they pack it with people. He also tells us this just after takeoff!) So as soon as we got airborne she wanted Shrek. We ask the stewardess for a pillow. She tells us that American airlines had to cut out pillows! Are you kidding me! Whatever! We try to recline Mrohéa’s seat and it is broken and won’t go back. Two hours later she is still awake and slightly moody. We put her in her seat for landing and she starts freaking out. About 100 yards off the ground I can’t handle it and take her out and hold her for the landing. As soon as the wheels touch the ground she passes out cold!! Kim and I passed her between us as we were getting off and her head was rolling around like it wasn’t connected. She didn’t wake up once.
We get off the plane at 12:30AM and get in a line of 30 people that are waiting for a hotel. I get the bags and Kim gets us a room. As I am waiting for her I hear people talk about the Holliday Inn they put them in which it a 20 minute shuttle ride away. This can’t be happening!!! Then we catch our 1st break of the day. They feel a little bit bad for us and ended up giving us a room in the hotel in the airport! Sweeeet! We are in our room within 20 minutes. We check-in, get our room, they bring us bed for #1. I decide we have earned a beer and venture down to the bar on the 1st floor. I order 2 Corona’s. The bartender tells me he can only serve 1 drink per person at a time. GREAT! I order one Corona and give him a $20. He returns with my 1 beer and $11. Did I just pay $9 for a Corona!!! I bring my lonely beer up to the room and sadly offer half of it to Kim who just looks at me with a look of amazement and says I can have it. I drink my beer in a mostly dark room and have to laugh because we probably could have made it to Djibouti or something by now and I am still in Chicago on the 1st day of our trip. Tomorrow has to be better right??
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