It finally happened to us. We got scroobed trying to fly home for Christmas. Over the years, we've been relatively lucky as travelers and road warriors. A delayed bag or two, air travel delays, but never a flight cancellation for paid tickets. And it really looked like we were going to get out too!!! All day long I had been obsessively checking the flight status. Every time, it was still on schedule for departure. Which was great considering ALL other flights in or out of Chicago on Alaska Air were dropping like flies. I has hoping beyond hope that our good travel karma would hold out and get us home to Chicago as planned. We got all packed, loaded in the car and all the way down to the off site parking facility. Brian shuffled our luggage into the shuttle and a short while later we were slipping and sliding thru the streets slowly making our way to the airport. Well, wouldn't you know it, just as we pulled up to the curb, we find out that Alaska has canceled ALL remaining flights. UGH - SO CLOSE!!! Apparently they ran out of de-icer fluid. It was "stuck" on the other side of the mountain passes. GRR. And because we were one of the later flights to get canceled, the first available flight out isn't until December 26th. That's right folks, the day after Christmas. :(
On one hand I am extremely sad and disappointed to miss officially spending Christmas with our families. B's grandparents were making a special trip up. Other family members had taken days off of work. Everyone was looking forward to seeing Caiden. And now this stupid travel hiccup has thrown lots of those plans up in the air.
On the other hand, I'm really kind of exited at the prospect of spending our first family Christmas together in our own home. Caiden gets to experience waking up and coming downstairs and unwrapping all his presents under the tree. We get to open our stockings on Christmas morning instead of days later. My side of the family has generously moved Christmas Day to New Years Day which actually wound up being better for some folks. And hopefully others won't have to worry about leaving early to attend to other family activities. We also get to ring in the New Year with my cousin and her husband and maybe even get to go out to celebrate NYE. We'll also get to have Christmas morning (on the 27th) with B's family - something I don't think we've ever been able to do!
So as much as I really wish we were in Chicago right now as we were supposed to be, I guess it could have been a whole lot worse. Imagine if we were stuck in an airport on a layover in some other city where we couldn't get a hotel or stay with someone! And we were able to take all of our luggage back home with us. We were able to reschedule our pet arrangements and parking arrangements with relative ease. I just hope hope hope that the weather behaves itself both here and in Chicago for our new flight on Friday. We can't wait to see all of our Chicago family and friends!!!!!
2 comments:
Just cozy up and enjoy the time with the three of you together. It won't be too long before you and B will be sitting home and Caiden will be stuck in some space station in a galaxy far away not able to make connections home for the holidays. If the snow keeps up here, Jo and I will be celebrating alone as will Derek, Jeanna and Saffron. I suppose that the weather will not stop Sally and Uncas (the outdoorsy folks) will trek to the northwoods. Merry Christmas!
That's right! We don't let a little bit of snow slow us down. Worst case, we pack up the sled and let our very own reindeer (sammy) pull up to the northwoods!
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