As we tried to figure out if we could make the quick trip back for Grandma's funeral this past week, Paul remembered our travels to go back for Grandpa Walker's funeral this past spring. I remember mentioning here that it was a trip unlike any other and then proceeded to put it far from my mind instead of reliving the unfortunate details...until now.
It was one of those trips where Paul and I just kept looking at each other wondering what else could go wrong. See what you think (and fair warning--it is not a short tale):
Due to traffic (midday on a Sunday?!?), we got to the airport a little later than planned but with enough time to make it through security and board our plane. However, before we even made it to security, the ticket agent informed us that our plane was late (weather problems in Chicago delayed it) and that we would more than likely miss our connecting flight in Denver. He gave us instructions to run as quickly as we could when landing with the hopes that the other plane was still on the ground since he could not do anything for us until we actually missed the flight.
We boarded our plane in San Diego very late and proceeded to plan what we would do when the plane pulled to the gate in Denver. Paul was going to run like mad with two of our carry-ons to the next gate to try and hold the plane while I got the boys, one carry-on, and two car seats there as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, our connecting plane was already gone.
And that is when the trip really got ugly. Paul got in line at customer service to try to get us on any flight that could get us closer than Denver. He also tried to contact somebody via cell phone while he waited with the other 50+ people from our flight alone who needed to find alternative transportation. The boys and I found a spot on the floor (of course there were no seats anywhere near customer service) and started watching videos and eating snacks.
Over three hours later, Paul finally got to a human being in the airport who tried to help us but informed us that the soonest we could fly into Sioux Falls (our original destination) was Tuesday afternoon (a few hours AFTER his grandpa's funeral would be done). Being creative, she looked for other cities in the vicinity (and we are talking cities within eight hours), but the best they could do was get two of us to Rapid City where we would still need to rent a car and drive across the state of South Dakota. The other two of us would have to fend for ourselves until we could get a flight back home.
I wanted Paul to get home so we decided to send him and Isaac on the Rapid City flight while Caleb and I would try to connect with friends in the Denver area for lodging until we had tickets out of there. At the gate, Paul tried to get somebody to give up their two seats for us to all be able to fly out but was unsuccessful. At the last minute (really, the gate agent laid down an ultimatum that Paul either needed to get on the plane or his seats were being given to the next two on the list), Paul could not get on the plane since he felt like he was abandoning us and gave up the seats.
With no other options and knowing we were not getting to the Midwest for a couple days and would miss the funeral, we began wandering aimlessly through the nearly empty terminal. It was after 11:00 p.m. so we were almost at twelve hours since leaving home. I stumbled to a different customer service counter and happened to catch the eye of a very compassionate worker for the airline. After hearing our story, she stayed another thirty minutes trying her best to do anything for us. In her kindness she was able to figure out a way to get us a hotel room and some food vouchers (both things for which we were technically ineligible since the reason for our delay was weather in Chicago). It was 2:00 a.m. by the time we got to our hotel and fell, exhausted, into bed.
We awoke semi-refreshed the next morning and decided to take matters into our own hands since we were determined to not miss the funeral. Paul got up early and called car rental agency after car rental agency trying to find one that would rent us a car that we could leave in a different spot (a lot harder to find than one would think!). Our Denver friends, the Jansens, offered to come and get us and let us stay with them, but we decided to rent a car and drive to Aberdeen.
Thankfully (one of the silver linings in this ill-fated trip), we did everything carry-on and had even taken the boys' booster and car seats so we had everything with us to make the trip. By the time we worked out all the details and got our car and figured out how to get on the correct road that would get us out of Denver and headed to South Dakota (it was our first time using a GPS, and it was sending us the wrong way...I said some rather choice words to the GPS voice every time it said, "Recalculating"), it was close to noon. Although we had about 12 hours ahead of us in the car, this was the first moment of hopefulness and joy we had experienced since hearing that we would more than likely miss our flight 24 hours earlier.
We did finally make it to Aberdeen a little after midnight. We missed the viewing and the quality time with family that happened on Monday while we were traveling, but we were going to be able to make it to the funeral that morning.
Now, this is where this blog post should end, right? Unfortunately, no. It started snowing that afternoon while we were all hanging out at Grandma's house. This was fun for Isaac who went outside to throw snowballs with Gpa N and to catch the snowflakes on his tongue. But this turned into one of those spring snowstorms that builds in fury.
We woke up to an icy world. And I had a stomach bug. Really, could anything else go wrong on this trip?!?
Um, yes. Paul went outside to move the car (a pretty cool Dodge Charger) and found out that the car we rented was a rear-wheel drive and had no traction on the ice. He could barely get it out of its parking spot. Instead of heading over to Grandma's for a while and then a visit to see Grandma Lapka, we knew we had to get going so we could make it to the airport on time for our flight that night. (We had a little over three-hour trip to Sioux Falls from there, and the ice would slow us down considerably. We also found out that the rental car needed to be returned to Sioux Falls by that afternoon or we would have to pay another fee. At this point, though, what would have a few more dollars mattered in the scheme of things?)
Paul's parents caravanned with us with Gpa N driving our rental, Paul driving his pick-up, and the boys and me riding with Gma N. It was slow going with many scary moments watching Gpa fishtailing in front of us as he tried to keep the Charger on the road. About an hour into our journey, I was still not feeling well but realized we had a problem when Isaac complained about not feeling good. He gave me just enough warning to get a paper cup back to his mouth before he threw up. Again, really?!?
We finally made it to the airport with no more issues. But, alas, our story is not done yet.
While Paul was dropping off the rental car, I checked us in to get our tickets...or tried to. In the process of trying to change our tickets and make it to the funeral, one of the phone agents must have marked our tickets as being already printed because the agent told me she could do nothing for us since our tickets were showing as paper tickets on her computer and she could not issue me another ticket. I just looked at her and started laughing. "You have got to be kidding me!" was running through my mind.
Thankfully, we were in Sioux Falls, SD, and not some large airport. (Sorry if anyone takes offense, but I am glad I was in the Midwest and was talking to somebody who saw me as a real person and not just one of a few thousand.) I proceeded to tell her a very abbreviated version of our trip. Her eyes just kept getting bigger and bigger. She was appalled and told me she was going to take care of things so we would be fine through to the end. I am not sure what kind of magic she worked, but she took care of us.
And we thought we were good...bad trip over. We carried all our stuff through security and settled in to our seats in the gate area. Our butts had barely hit the chair when a gate agent came on the loudspeaker to announce, "Folks, I am sorry to say that a bolt on the front of the airplane has fallen off so the plane...will not be going out anytime tonight. You will need to go back through security and try to make alternative arrangements to get to your destinations." Really?!? Well, almost, but I left out that the plane was heading to Chicago; thankfully, it was not our plane but somebody else's. (Sorry that we celebrated at somebody else's expense, but at that point we would not have been surprised if it would have been our plane. We almost wondered if we jinxed that plane for them.)
Phew! Dodged a bullet there (thankfully, since we had been hit by quite a few in our three and a half-day journey).
There was only one more thing that went wrong. Remember that stomach bug that hit Isaac and me that morning? Well, it hit Caleb down south while we were at the airport waiting for our flight. And to make matters worse, the automatic flushing toilets freaked him out so he kept jumping off the toilet every time it flushed while he was in there. Again, thankfully, we had all our stuff with us. And, thankfully, he did not run out of undies or pants (clean or dirty) before we made it home. Getting to clean out all his clothes when we returned home was the final thing we had to do before we could officially call this trip done.
I hope we never have a trip like this one ever again. Once in my lifetime was one time too many!
