So yesterday Jeff and I flew back from our wonderful vacation in Saskatoon. WE were on seperate flights because of a mix-up with the people who book the flights at Jeff's work. So plan A was that Jeff would land in Lexington at 430pm and pick up the dog and then drive 90 minutes to Cincinatti to pick me up at 605pm. We both flew out of Saskatoon at about 7am.
Moving on to plan B. AirCanada's system crashed nationwide, so although Jeff got onto his Northwest flight on time, my flight to Toronto was delayed. We took off about 45 minutes late.
Moving on to Plan C. I get to Toronto, go to Immigration to get my work Visa, and I walk into the the room and one of the officers is screaming at this poor guy about his paperwork. Then this woman officer starts yelling at me and everyone else who walks in the door to get our fingerprints and picture. And I do mean yelling. SO I finally sit to wait and thank goodness it was the quite person who got my file. I wouldn't necessarily say shw as nicer, but at least she didn't yell. So then I go to pay for my TN, and their credit card machine was broken, so I had to be escorted out to the bank machine, and then wait in line to get to the room so I can pay. So now we're not sure if I have missed my plane or not. So the nice customs guy walks me over to the desk to re-book my flight. Well that lady says I missed my flight and books me on the next set of flightw out and changes the tags on my bags. Then I go through security and get chosen to be the person who gets the "thourough" screening with the pat down and everything. Then I look on the board ans realize my origional flight hasn't left yet. So I go to the counter to see if I can still get on it. Since they already re-routed my baggage, I can't. So now I'm stuck in Toronto for an extra 3 hours. In the meantime I call Jeff and he got into Detroit early and should be boarding his plane at 2pm.
Moving on to Plan D. Jeff calls and they had boarded the plane in Detroit, sat on it for a while, while it got de-iced etc., then there was a mechanical problem and they went back to the gate and everyone got off. Then the flight crew had too many hours for the day, so they were waiting on a new flight crew. Then my flight from Toronto to Chicago was cancelled, so I got 2 more hours in Toronto. However they told me that if our flight was on time, most flights leaving Chicago were running late so I could probably still make my connecting flight, but I couldn;t get a boarding pass for it.
Plan E. After a five hour wait in Detroit Jeff is finally in the air going to Lexington. I board in Toronto, and sit on the tarmac for 2 hours. Miss my connecting flight and I don't have a boarding pass for the next flight. So we finally take off for Chicago, we land and I run to the next gate. They were already boarding the plane and I begged and got on the last flight of the night for Cincinnati. I call Jeff to tell him I will be in Cincinnati at 11:14, it's about 10pm and Jeff has just gotten into Lexington and is on his way home to get the dog. So I land in Cincinnati and no big surprise, my bag didn't make it. So I file a claim, Jeff picks me up and we go to a hotel with the dog and all three of us crash until 10 am.
Now it's 5pm and I just got a call saying my bag is on it's way to our house in the next few hours.
When I was a kid and we came back from Kenya I rememebr telling my cousins we had been travelling for 24 hours. That included driving time and layovers. It took me 19 hours to get from Saskatoon to Lexington. That's ridiculous.