Vacation Part 1 (Getting there)

What a long, relaxing, fun, eventful vacation!  Did I use too many adjectives?   Too bad, because they all apply!

After a year, Rob and I were finally able to take a trip home to Florida.  Trust me, this was a well deserved break for Rob.  The past few months Rob has been working from 6:15 AM to at LEAST 6:30 PM (the latest was 10:30 PM).  And working a half day on Saturdays.  Like I said, it was a well deserved break.  We decided to fly out on a Friday after work.  We were supposed to leave at 7:15 PM (EST) and get in around 11:00 PM (CST).  Notice I said "supposed to"?  If anyone knows me, they know that I don't have the best of luck with flights.  I miss a connection, the pilot calls in sick, the crew is late, the plane has maintenance problems, the weather is bad.  Inevitably some part of my trip will be plagued with travel woes.  Usually, when I travel with people though my bad luck doesn't rub off on them.   It looks like my bad luck has spread to Rob though.  He married me, he married my luck, too.  

Anyway, back to that Friday.  The day started out beautiful, with a 90% chance of rain/thunderstorms in the afternoon.  I knew our flight would most likely be delayed, but we had a 2 hour layover, so I figured we would be okay.  We got to the airport around 5:30 and we were told that our flight was behind schedule by 1 minute.  1 minute no big deal!  We checked out the flight board and I noticed that the 5:30 flight to Atlanta was delayed.  No thunderstorms on our end, but Atlanta was getting hit pretty bad.  So, all flights going into Atlanta were delayed.  We still had a lot of time, so I thought we would be okay.  Our plane showed up at 6:45 PM.  Great, right?  Wrong.  An announcement was made telling us that we would not start boarding the plane until 8:45 PM.  So, that would mean we would most likely miss our connecting flight at 10:57 PM.  I was trying not to freak out.  I just figured we would catch a flight first thing in the morning to Pensacola.  There are TONS of flights going to Pensacola from Atlanta.  I asked the gate agent to book us a back up flight, just in case we missed our connection.  She booked us on a 6:45 PM flight on Saturday.  If we missed our connection, that was the ONLY available flight.  Alright, now I started to worry.  My phone has an internet connection, so I started checking the connecting flight's status online.  Maybe I was checking it every 5 minutes, but I was a little stressed.  Rob kept reminding me that we were on vacation.  That didn't help.

So, at 8:45 Pm we start boarding the plane.  I checked the connecting flight and they were still in DC, but they were supposed to be leaving at 9:00 Pm.   That should delay the plane until at least 11:30 PM.  Maybe we could make it!  Finally our plane left around 9:10 PM.  It was a very smooth flight.  I tried to keep myself calm, not to think about the connection.  But I stress, I can't help it!  Finally we landed.  I think it was around 10:40 or 10:50 PM.  I immediately turned on my phone and checked the connection.  They had just landed too!  The flight was supposed to leave around 11:30 PM.  Okay, maybe we can make it, if we can just get to the gate!  Which wasn't happening.  Apparently, there were so many flights that had been delayed that they didn't have a gate for us.  We sat on the runway for at least 40 minutes.  I kept checking the flight status.  At this point, Rob kept checking it too on his phone!  Our only hope was that our connecting flight was sitting on the runway, too.  At about 11:20 PM I checked the connecting flight's status and the plane was delayed until 1:00 AM!!!!  Ahh!!!!  I was so relieved.  Right at the moment I read that our plane was delayed, our plane started moving to a gate.  Things were working out!

We got off our plane a made our way to our next gate.  On our way there, we saw a line longer than any line I've ever seen at any amusement park.   At first I thought it was a line for food.  I quickly realized it was the line to the Delta Customer Service desk.  All of those people had either missed their flight, or their flight had been cancelled.  They were waiting in line to be booked on another flight.  Oh, I was so thankful we didn't have to stand in that line!!

We got to the gate and boarded our plane.  We didn't leave until about 1:20 AM.  We got into Pensacola around 1:20 Am (CST).  We went to wait for our bags.  And waited, and waited...finally my bag showed up, but Rob's wasn't there.  I ran over to the baggage claim, because there were about 50 other people whose bags did not make it on the plane also.  We were fourth in line.  Okay, I was actually lurking by the baggage claim.  It was late and I didn't want to have to deal with the line!  We gave the baggage claim people our phone number and were told they would call us when the bag showed up. 

Finally, we were able to head to Rob's grandfather's house.  My parents had left us one of their cars at the airport.  Rob and I were both starving!!  All the restaurants had been closed in the Norfolk airport, and they were closing by the time we got to the Atlanta airport.  We went to Whataburger!  Yum!  then we went home and went to sleep.

The next morning, we checked online to see if Rob's bag had made it to Pensacola.  According to the website, they didn't have any information for us.  Basically, they didn't know where Rob's bag was.  Wonderful.  So, we got ready and headed out to buy Rob some new clothes and other essentials.  But first, we stopped by the airport to see if they could give us any information about Rob's bag.  I walked in and saw 3 rows of baggage just sitting by the baggage claim area.  I walked down the first row and there was Rob's bag!  I picked it up and walked out.  No one asked to see our claim ticket, no one said anything to me.  I thought about stopping by the Delta Customer service office to let them know I had the bag, but decided against it.  According to the Delta website, Rob's bag still hasn't been located.

So, we had our luggage and we were in Pensacola.  We were ready to start our vacation!!