solar squirrel

Let me first of all state that I love snow and winter.  I never realized that snow could cause a flight originally scheduled on the 22nd to be delayed 5 days!

Our flight from Portland to Cleveland was supposed to happen yesterday - the 22nd of Dec.  We checked online yesterday morning and it said it was cancelled.  No big deal, we figured we would just call the airline and get the next one, so what if we ended up getting in a little later last night.  BOY WERE WE WRONG!  After being on the phone for AN HOUR I managed to get nothing accomplished but to get myself even more frustrated and upset.  The woman on the phone told me that there was nothing left for the day, so would she like me to check for the 23rd.  ‘Ok’ I said, that’s fine.

Nothing for the 23rd.
Nothing for the 24th.
Nothing for the 25th.

At this point I thought there had to be something wrong with their computers or something - how could a flight originally scheduled for the 22nd not be able to go out for 3 days?!?  The woman said that our best bet was to just wait a few hours and call back and not get a refund for our original cancelled flight.

So that’s what we did.  We waited about 4 hours and called back.  This time the situation seemed to be even worse!  It was INSANE!  Even Expedia showed NOTHING for the search results when we picked PDX to CLE for any time and any day between the 22nd and 25th.  At this point I was starting to accept the fact that I wouldn’t be home for Christmas, but I had Brian’s party the day after Christmas that I really wanted to go to!  We would certainly be able to get a flight that would get us home by the evening of the 26th, right?  WRONG!  The next available flight option for us was 12/27 - yep - a full 5 DAYS LATER!  And I’m not even going to hold my breath on this one…I may not make it home until after the new year at this rate!

The thing that really gets to me is that the weather isn’t even that bad!  I mean, yea, there’s snow on the ground, but it’s not like anything we’ve never seen.  It’s just normal winter.  I guess the reason for all of the issues is there was some type of back log of holiday travelers - people who’s flights had been cancelled and who had been stranded in the airport for days already had to get taken care of prior to us.  Top that off with the fact that they were having issues w/ the de-icing machines or something and you get a 5 day delay!

The good news is that we’re at Todd’s sister’s house, which is very nice and cozy.  We don’t have to pay for extra days at a hotel, we have plenty of things to keep us entertained including Guitar Hero and Wii and a whole cupboard full of games.  Oh - and lots of wine and beer!  I’m also happy that Todd gets to see his parents and sister and nephew for a little longer since he only gets to see them once a year.  I just don’t get to be with my family for Christmas, but I guess that’s ok.  It’s not like I have to go back to work…I”m not losing any vacation days!

So - I’ll plan on being at the SERC New Year’s eve morning run since I’m gonna miss the Christmas eve one, and I definitely want to get together with some peeps that will be at Brian’s party so if any of you read my blog let’s plan something!

As of now we get back home early evening on 12/27 - cross your fingers that it doesn’t change!