A Long Way Home
March 19th, 2005 by ktula
After an “epic” 18-hour journey, i am finally home! I was supposed to arrive in Seattle at around 1900 last night, and i was planning on heading up to Whistler the same evening. However, things did not turn out the way i had planned. When i got on my flight in Philly at around 1330 EST, there were some talk among the passengers about the snow storm brewing in Minneapolis, the city where i was supposed to board my connecting flight to Seattle. I didn’t give much thought to it since i was pretty tired. I was asleep during most of the flight and did not wake up till the final descent. I looked out of the window and did not see much snow on the ground. I was like, snow storm, what snow storm? The roads looked pretty clear of snow to me. Turned out, the plane was not landing in Minneapolis - it was landing in Madison, Wisconsin! Apparently, the plane was trying to land in Minneapolis and because of the snow storm, only one runway was open. After circling around for sometime, it was running low on fuel and it had to land in the nearest alternate airport. This is the second time this has happened to me in two months! The last time my flight had to land somewhere other than the original destination, i was trying to get to Reno/Tahoe. And again, it was snowboarding related. Hm…what’s going on here..
Anyway, to continue my story…So the plane landed in Madison and it did not leave Madison until about 2 hours later. By the time i arrived in Minneapolis, i missed my connecting flight by about 20 minutes, even though that flight had been delayed for at least 30 minutes. To my horror, i found out that the next flight that they put me on was cancelled! And that was the last flight out of Minneapolis to Seattle. If i wanted to get on another direct flight from Minneapolis to Seattle, i would have to wait until Sunday because all the flights were sold out for Saturday, and there was no way to get to a nearby hub because it is spring break now and all the flights were full of students heading out west or south. Fortunately, i managed to get myself on the flight to Portland. My thought was that if i could get myself to Portland, i might be able to catch a connecting flight on Horizon airlines to Seattle, or i could get a rental car and drive up north. Before the plane took off, i found out that there was no connecting flight to Seattle that evening and that all the flights on Saturday to Seattle were fully booked. I managed to get hold of my elder sister, and thankfully, she was able to reserve a rental car in Portland. When i finally arrived in Portland, it was already 2315. Because of some delay at the Alamo/National rental office, i did not leave Portland till close to 0030. Packed with two cans of energy drink (one supposedly with Ginseng) and my iPod Shuffle, i drove up north toward Seattle, about 180 miles away. By the time i got home, it was close to 0300. Ahhhh…home sweet home 