while she’s been in hiding for a while, BLJ (my former alias: bad luck jen) has reared her ugly head once again.
i’ve never been a good traveler. don’t get me wrong, we had so much fun in san francisco with the bugarskes. we LOVE them to pieces. maddox loved playing with the boys and he played so hard he’d worn himself out every night. it was just the getting there and back that was interesting.
the story begins when we wake up at 3 am to get ready to go to the airport. i’ve been in complete denial up until 11 pm the night before that i am going to fly with a toddler, 6 months pregnant. we wake up maddox at 3:30 and true to his nature, he is a total trooper. in the event that he decided NOT to be a trooper--today--we make the call to use a little “security blanket” of benadryl. we get to the airport at 4:30 as planned (a miracle in BLJ world) check in, make it through security and still have plenty of time to catch our breath before boarding.
once we are on the plane, maddox is pretty mellow for a first-timer. he is a little bit afraid of the height as we take off, but fortunately, it is still dark and the benadryl had kicked in by now and we all get through it unscathed. we land 10 minutes early in phoenix at 6:19 am.
we have a short layover which is perfect for traveling with a toddler. enough time to stretch your legs, let him run off a little steam, then get bored of running around the terminal and the plane sounds fun again. we did have a gate change, and whoa--it could not have been farther away from where we are. we make it to the other gate and board our plane and are ready for our 6:55 am departure. the pilot makes an announcement that we have to wait for the mechanic to finish up with a technical problem then we’ll be on our way, and promises an update in 15 minutes. no sweat. i can do anything for 15 minutes. we broke out the dvd player, watched “cars” which, we discovered on the first flight, is maddox’s new all time favorite movie.
30 minutes later we get our update and the pilot promises another in 15 minutes. this continued for 2 hours--right about the time we were supposed to be landing in sacramento. by now, maddox is a nutcase and they are letting people on and off the plane with a boarding pass so we are out of there pretty fast. it didn’t take long for them to ask everyone to get off the plane and to remain calm while they figure out what to do...mmm kay...another half hour goes by and our flight is cancelled. what?!? toddler! pregnant! stranded! in phoenix! help!
at this point i should mention that our poor friend jenn has driven for 2 hours to sacramento to pick us up. we definitely should have called her sooner, but by the time we knew anything, it was already too late. so sorry jenn!
rex takes responsibility for maddox and i take responsibility for the rest of our travel plans for the day and spend the next 1 1/2 hours in line at customer service. everyone ahead of me in the line is leaving customer service NOT happy. rumors are flying that there are no more flights to sacramento today. lucky for us, we can fly into any airport in the san francisco area so i am still optimistic. at 10:15 am, i am finally next in line and get us on a flight to san francisco that leaves at 1:49 pm. whew! only 6 hours displaced in phoenix. what a deal.
100% thankful that we a) are safe on the ground and not in the plane with mechanical problems and b) all have tickets for a flight to northern california THAT DAY, we spend the next few hours pushing maddox in the stroller, carrying maddox on “walks” through the airport, letting maddox push the stroller on “walks” through the airport. we eat pizza and have vanilla bean frappuccinos--maddox’s favorite special treat. we are still not over the edge.
by the time we are waiting to board, poor little maddox in all his good spirits has hit the wall when it comes to patience. he is way past his nap time and rex (my hero) is able to walk with and sing to him enough to calm him down. we board the plane and he falls asleep so hard that he misses the whole take off. talk about a relief. he sleeps through most of the flight and wakes up happy.
now--when we changed flights we had to re-route our bags to san francisco, and they assured me everything was in order. really, all i care about is the car seat. it is the only thing we need to not be stranded at the san francisco airport without an ordeal and tons of waiting. when we arrive, we get 3 of our 4 bags very quickly and everything looks good. before we know it, we are the last ones standing, and the bags stop coming. guess which bag doesn’t make it...yep, the car seat.
off to the baggage office we go, wait in another line, and sweet jenn--who has made 2 hour drives to sacrameno AND san francisco to get us in one day--is driving in laps waiting for us and thankfully, the airline has loaner car seats. we load up and high tail it out of the airport. it is 5 pm pacific time, and we have been traveling for 14 hours. the car seat shows up the next day as promised and all is well in the world.
but then we have to go home.
our day starts at 8:30 am with a 2 hour drive to sacramento. it is pretty drive, we get to stop at starbucks and have lots of time to talk with jenn on the way. we board the plane and rex says, “this is the same plane, isn’t it? it looks exactly the same as the one that got cancelled.” me: “no way, they have so many, it’s probably just the same kind of plane.”
we board at noon as scheduled and the pilot makes an announcement that we have to wait for the mechanic to finish up with a technical problem then we’ll be on our way, and promises an update in 15 minutes. no sweat. i can do anything for 15 minutes. we broke out the dvd player, watched “cars” which we discovered on the first flight is maddox’s new all time favorite movie.
yes, i copied that from above. i can copy the rest too: 30 minutes later we get our update and the pilot promises another in 15 minutes. this continues for 1 1/2 hours, right about the time we are supposed to be landing in phoenix. by now, maddox is a nutcase and i get off the plane to find out what is going on. predicting the future of this flight, i am going to be proactive this time.
no answers from the people at the gate, but there sure was enough attitude from us airways to go around. after all, it is the passengers fault they can’t fix their plane, right? while i am trying to re-route us, everyone else gets off the plane and gets in line behind me. rex gets off the plane with one less bag than we took on. i bought my mom a box of see’s truffles for taking us to the airport at 4 am and it went in the garbage with our trash from lunch. oops, sorry mom.
still the flight is not cancelled. we are sneaking up on 2, then 3 pm. if we don’t figure this out quickly we aren’t going to have any flight options at the end of the day. people on our flight start getting re-routed only if they are going to certain cities. 45 minutes later the san antonio passengers get re-routed, but the flight still has not been cancelled. i really, really just want the flight to get cancelled because even if they do fix this plane, i do not want to get on it.
we get sent to southwest airlines. hallelujah, another airline! my prayers are being answered. on our way over to southwest we decide to jettison our stroller that we checked on the runway, and although it only cost $20, it was worth millions in airport entertainment value.
finally at southwest, aboard the plane and thankfully the flight isn’t full, and with no assigned seats--maddox has his own seat. this was huge. i see our car seat bag being loaded onto the plane. we have another connection out of phoenix already scheduled. we are set. off we go.
scheduled to depart at 7:50 pm (we were supposed to be landing in san antonio at 7:30 pm!), i shamelessly ask for a medical pre-board for my pregnant and exhausted self and family. we are first in line and hear an announcement: “please take your seats again, we have called a mechanic and cannot board at this time.”
i have nothing left.
it is 8 pm. we’ve been traveling for 12 hours. i sit in a wheelchair at the gate and am too tired to even cry. rex and i seriously debate renting a car and driving home to SA. then we got our answer. false alarm, we can board, we are ready to go. we get onto the plane and luckily this flight isn’t full either and maddox has a seat again. not too long into the flight he conks out from sheer exhaustion and rex and i are finally able to exhale.
we arrive in san antonio at 12 am. we are on our way to claim our bags and hear an announcement: “attention southwest passengers! someone packed a bottle of barbeque sauce in their luggage and it has exploded. it has gotten on several other bags. we apologize for any inconvenience.” after the day we’ve had, rex and i look at each other like, we are definitely getting the saucy bags.
waiting for our baggage, we see that the sauce issue was another flight’s. whew! dodged one. the car seat shows up, but our other 3 bags are missing. rex heads to the southwest baggage office and they say they never received it from us airways and we have to take it up with them. it is after midnight and the us airways baggage office is closed, of course. we pile into the car, install the car seat and get home at 1 am. we traveled for 15 hours to get home. it was supposed to be a 5 hour trip.
we are on our way home, and i sincerely do not care if we ever see our bags again--i am just SO happy to be home. one (rather large) meltdown by maddox and we are all in bed by 2 am, and i’ve got “la bamba” stuck in my head before i drift off. we are still not over the edge. what a day.
