I have many adventures! which means the Law of Averages inevitably kicks in. This trip to a meetup in North Carolina was great; United Airlines, not so much. Enjoy my butterflies and missed travel connections!
To maximize my vacation time, I opted for a red-eye flight to North Carolina. We left at 10pm, then we left the same airport at 1:30am. The first time, the captain decided to turn back after 90 minutes into a five-hour flight because of an unruly passenger. I would have been all over that, both for my true-crime interests and my savage frustration at having my restless sleep disturbed yet again, not to mention me being a blogger, except I hadn’t heard any violence. What unruly passenger? I don’t want a canceled flight for anything less than a Vibrant chimp-out!
When the plane landed, security escorted two elderly Asian ladies off the plane. A three-hour delay because two Japanese lesbians decided they no longer liked each other? Isn’t handling this sort of thing why God stuck Denver Airport where He did?
Anyway, I eventually arrived and caffeinated up. We rented half a house for the weekend:
And the barbecue pit was put to good use. We hiked along the Catawba River Greenway.
You have no idea how alien that looks to a Californian. Lush, green plants in June?! WITH RUNNING WATER?!
Sorta water. Hmm, pea soup sounds good for dinner.
A case in point. The last time my neighborhood looked like that, the governor declared a state of emergency.
A tree in desperate need of a rope swing!
Riverfront boardwalks are the best location for an ice cream shop EVER!
This wouldn’t be the Carolinas without some bugs. Can you find all eight butterflies? Most are Monarchs but the leftmost might be a Painted Lady and the two centermost, Viceroys.
It’s a spicebush swallowtail.
It’s Mothra. With a hand for scale.
Ah, small-town America. What a rare sight now!
Speaking of rare sights, I took several pictures of this statue in case it gets Canceled! A gorgeous scene of what America was before the Yankees ruined everything then imported Bolsheviks to rape the corpse. They will burn in Hell for that, but I digress. The placards are the bottom didn’t identify him specifically; this was a monument to the town’s war dead, not an honorarium.
Time came to leave and, heh, speaking of Hell. I got to the airport early despite reassurances that security wouldn’t take long, only to discover that my flight was delayed THREE HOURS! The airline sent me an updated itinerary, showing that my new flight to Chicago would continue on to San Francisco. I wouldn’t even have to get off the plane. Convenient, although I noticed the updated itinerary was missing the last leg to San Jose. Eh, whatever, it’s close and the worst-case scenario is I’d have to take the shuttle bus.
I arrived in Chicago only to be pushed off the plane into a dimly lit, shuttered terminal with no outgoing flights AT ALL. Stranded traveler! I knew how to handle this situation… find an employee and start complaining… and they soon put me up in the only hotel in Chiraq that wasn’t running an airport shuttle. After making my way to the shuttle stop, I quickly found groups of travelers wandering around and asking how to get to the same hotel I was. I called the provided hotel phone number. Nobody answered.
I briefly debated whether to walk through six miles of unfamiliar, downtown Chicongo at midnight, chose to live instead, and paid $20 for a taxi. Upon arrival, the desk clerk took my reservation with a pencil and clipboard because their computers were down, which explained the phone problem.
It was a nice suite, to give credit where it’s due. I just had to get there, and back after a four-hour beauty rest, by taxi.
Flight delayed again. Customer Disservice gave me food vouchers for breakfast.
Made it to Denver instead of San Francisco. One last leg to make. I stared out the window at the aircraft while maintenance cleaned it up, feeling an ominous sense of dread. Maintenance poked around the aircraft, huddled for a minute, then sent the aircraft to the hanger instead of proceeding to the boarding. My flight was delayed again while they warmed up a replacement.
Ominous feeling confirmed.
We boarded only an hour late, taxied onto the tarmac and the entire airport closed because of weather.
Ninety minutes later, one aircraft decided to risk the thunderstorm instead of irate passengers, took off, survived, and the airport reopened.
The flight took longer than expected because of weather. Of course.
I arrived! Home last last! Dude, where’s my suitcase?
Sigh. Of course.
I knew how to handle this situation, too, and proceeded to the next unfortunate counter monkey.
“My suitcase didn’t arrive on the baggage carousel. Here’s my receipt.”
“GunnerQ? Hmm, why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because I’ve met you all by now?”
“What does your suitcase look like? Oh, okay, it’s in our breakroom. We all were wondering how it got there.”
Thus did my trip end with an Act of God. Clearly, the divine wants me to wear clean underpants. Elapsed travel time, 27 hours.
I am ever more grateful for my trips as the planned collapse of America slowly closes the door on competence and complex infrastructure. I sense, with the same ominous feeling of dread that I had in Denver, that our days as a First-World nation are numbered.
As soon as I read “United Airlines” I began to chuckle to myself. heh heh heh…. Gunner’s not getting out of this one unscathed.
Someday maybe they will be honest enough to rename it “Purgatory Airlines”. If I had a dollar for every one of my UA horror stories….
You don’t beat this river.
It could be worse. Earlier this year I was bumped from a Frontier flight, as at the last moment they replaced the A320 with an A319. I had plenty of company since the A319 is smaller. All we were offered were vouchers for a future flight and were left to scramble on our own to get home. No hotel, no food vouchers, just a $250 voucher for a future flight.
So I ask where I can pick up my luggage. Turns out my luggage did get on the flight! So I had to pop $130 for a room, plus dinner. And Frontier was booked for the next two days, so I spent $440 to book a flight the next day on United, a 777 that appeared to be completely booked as well when I boarded. So it cost me a total of about $600 with the hotel and meals.
I truly hate flying.