I went on a trip to Alabama to celebrate my husband's graduation from the SNCOA. I knew it was going to be a lot of traveling over a short amount of time, what I did not know was that I would be on an airplane or in the car for 5 days straight. I started out at home and drove to Minneapolis to meet my mom so she could take the kiddos and I could fly to Birmingham via Dallas. I was supposed to leave at 4:15pm and arrive Dallas at 6:40pm to leave at 7:50pm and then go on to Birmingham arriving at 9:15pm where my husband was to pick me up after driving the hour and a half to get there from Montgomery. I chose to fly into Birmingham because it was 1. Cheaper and 2. The flight times worked out better for him being able to pick me up. So I arrived in Minneapolis as scheduled, met my mom, had lunch, went to Ft. Snelling to drop off my car (free to park), took the train to the airport ($1.50 ticket and 2 minute ride, checked in and was ready to go. When I arrived at the gate it did not show my flight so I asked at the counter and they said they still had the previous flight up there because they had not left yet as they were having a minor maintenance issue. They were to leave the gate at 3:30, leaving enough time for our plane to get into the gate and get cleaned for us to board. As you could expect, that didn't happen, and oh by the way, our plane was going to be late arriving anyway. Can you see the snowball forming? So I informed the lady at 4:00pm that I had a very short layover in Dallas and was concerned about making my next flight, she looked me up in the computer and changed my seat so that I was close to the front to expedite my exit from the plane when we got there. Before we boarded our flight I asked once again if they could find another flight to Birmingham from Dallas because I was pretty sure we were not going to make it in time she again assured me I would be fine, the pilot can make up time in the air and we should be arriving about 7:20 and my next gate is just a few away from where we would be getting in at Dallas. Our plane finally left at 5:20pm and I was pretty sure we were gonna be REALLY late. To my surprise we actually landed at 7:20 like the lady said and I was gonna have to deplane as quickly as possible and run like the wind to my next gate, no biggie I could handle it. What I couldn't handle was the onset of a gazillion phones turning on and beeping and ringing like there was some kind of concert going on. Holy cow I didn't know there were that many people on the plane I swear they all had to have more than one. As we were taxiing toward the terminal we took a sharp right turn away from any civilization and passed 4 other planes waiting in line and sure enough we pulled in right behind them. Then the pilot comes on and says there will be a 5-minute delay but we should be pulling into our gate any minute. I'm thinking to myself that the 4 planes in front of us are each gonna take 5 minutes to move out of the way so there is no way we could get to the gate before my next flight left. At this point I ask the guy behind me if I can use his cell phone (haha if he wouldn't have let me I know of a gazillion more people I could have asked) and I called my husband and asked him if he had left for the airport yet and he says he was just getting on the road, I told him to not go and just sit tight while I figure out when I was coming in. I was right, I missed my flight, we got to the gate at 7:42pm. I asked the lady at the counter if my flight had left and all she said was "you're gonna need to go to the ticket counter". So I proceed out the terminal to the ticket counter to get re-ticketed. To my surprise (NOT) there were no other flights to Birmingham OR Montgomery that night. I could fly into Huntsville, which is like 3 hours away, not an option. So there I was, stuck in Dallas overnight. I called my husband back and let him know although he wasn't going to be able to pick me up I was gonna be in Montgomery in the morning and I would find a ride to where he was. Bonus, I got to fly into Montgomery instead of Birmingham, BUT, I had to spend the night in Dallas in a crappy hotel with no food within walking distance although I would never have walked there by myself in the neighborhood they left me. When I finally got to the hotel I called my husband again and he said the Chief, who was from the area, was gonna pick me up at the airport, thank you. So I finally go to bed at 10:30ish after locking the door with all three locks they provided and pushing a chair in front of the door. Then I had to get up at 4:30 to catch the shuttle back to airport for my 6:50am flight. Do you think I was happy? I won't answer that... So instead of getting there on Tuesday and spending 2 nights there I got there Wednesday, did the whole graduation thing, woke up and drove to Illinois where we spent the night and then proceeded to Wisconsin to pick up the kiddos and were going to spend another night. But nope, that didn't happen either. We got to my mom's around noon and decided to leave there right away because there was a winter storm heading in and we didn't want to get stuck there. We drove to St. Cloud, spent the night, and avoided the foot of snow my mom got over night. We did run into some icky roads but nothing compared to what we would have encountered had we stayed the night. We stopped in Minneapolis to pick up the van and got home Saturday night, the 5th day in a row I had been traveling. Sound like a fun time? If I left anything out I am sorry. I think I pretty much covered it.
