As Benny and I reflected on our day yesterday, we are fairly certain that it was one of the worst days of our lives. Now before you continue, know that no one died, nothing fatal happened, but it was DEFINITELY a ridiculous series of VERY frustrating events.
Our original plan: To fly to Missouri to see my parents and family! We hadn't been home in 2 years, so we were really excited about the trip. Our first flight out of Charlottesville, VA was at 10:30am and the connecting flight in Washington, DC (Dulles) was at 1:10pm. My brother and Dad were going to pick us up in St. Louis, we'd drive 2 hours back to Columbia and be home by 5pm (central time) for dinner.
Well...that didn't exactly happen.
Before I begin, an important detail to note is that I had worked 4 out of the 5 previous days--4 12-hour night shifts, were I got 5-6 hours of daytime sleep and Benny was with the boys. Then, Wednesday night, I didn't sleep well and got 3 hours of sleep. Awesome. Great start to a long day of traveling.
So, we left our house at 7:45am, fed the boys their breakfast in the car, and made it to the airport at 9am. The Charlottesville airport is TINY, so 1.5 hours is plenty of time to check in and board the plane. We entered the airport with 2 small kids, 4 suitcases (one was a carry on), two huge car seats, two backpacks and my purse. We trudged our way to the only line we saw, which had at least 4 people in it. The line was moving very slowly, so a man who was also in line with his family walked up and asked an airport employee if this was the line everyone needed to be in. She assured him that it was. Everyone needed to check into this line unless they didn't have any bags to check. So an hour later, we made it to the front of the line. When Benny gave the man our name, he said he had no record of our reservation. While he continued to search, he told us to start weighing our bags. We put the first bag on which weighed 48 pounds. He told us that the limit was 40 pounds, so we began shuffling the weight of our bags. At some point, Benny said something about flying out on a United plane, and the man said, "this is Allegiant Air." Benny said, "What?! We were told EVERYONE needed to go through this line no matter what!" And, there was no sign visible to indicate that was the case."
So, at 10:10 we made our way over to the United desk to check in. The man at the desk immediately said "It's too late. You can't get on the flight now." We couldn't believe it. We made sure they knew we had a connecting flight in D.C, and the man, who was very rude, said "I'm working on it." Finally, the man said they would pay for a taxi to drive us to DC (a 1 hour 45 minute drive) to catch our connecting flight. We all piled into a mini van and drove to DC. Alex normally takes a 1.5 hour nap at 10:30, so at 11:30 when he started getting really fussy, I laid down with him on my chest and got him to take a 20 minute nap.
We got to the DC airport at 12:10pm and went to the desk to check in. The man at the desk (who was VERY friendly) told us that he couldn't find our name. After hearing our story and looking further, he discovered that the man at the Charlottesville airport had cancelled all of our flights. He worked diligently to reinstate our returning flights, and then to get us on a flight out of DC to St. Louis. After 30-45 minutes. He said he couldn't find anything. He gave us a voucher for a taxi ride back to Charlottesville. We called my parents and brother, and my brother thought he was seeing flights the next day on the internet.
We spoke with another woman with United about looking some more for a flight. It was now 2pm and we hadn't had lunch, so we went to grab sandwiches. By the time the lady came back, Alex had been crying for 45 minutes (he usually takes his 2 hour afternoon nap at 2pm). She said she had a Delta flight for us at an airport 30 miles away that left at 5pm. After much discussion, we decided that it wasn't worth the risk of missing the flight or the travel stress on the boys to try to make the flight. So, we took the taxi ride back to Charlottesville.
But...we had the WORST driver in America. I had gotten Alex to fall asleep on my chest while I was laying down in the back of the van, and the way he kept slamming on his brakes while talking on his cell phone and weaving in and out of traffic made me almost fall off of the seat several times. Alex would wake up screaming, and then I'd work to get him back to sleep. Three times Benny gently reminded the driver that he cared very much for his family and that he just wanted to get home safely.
At 6pm, (2.5 hours later) we made it back to the Charlottesville airport. The driver helped us unload all of our stuff and drove away. I worked to get the car seats back into the car while Benny went into the airport to get the names of some of the people from the morning. When he came back, I looked around for my purse and couldn't find it. It was still in the taxi. Benny said he had just seen our driver in the airport, so we were hopeful he wasn't far away.
I got on the phone with someone from the cab company, and by the time she got in touch with him, he told her he was 40 minutes away and that if we wanted him to turn around, we would have to pay him $40 for the gas (it had been 15 minutes since Benny had seen him). Alex was by now screaming again, and we decided I should cancel my debit card just in case he tried to use it. As I got into the process of canceling the card and was on the phone with the banker from Wells Fargo, we thought that the man had already used the card. This turned out to be a mistake, but an unnecessary headache! We started driving back to Bridgewater, and when we were 30 minutes from home, the taxi driver called us and said he was at the Charlottesville airport with my purse. We turned around to go back to get it, and when we arrived at the airport (it was now 7:45pm--2.5 hours after dinner time for the boys), the driver gave Benny an earful about how "hurt he was that he'd been accused of using the debit card." Now, Benny had to calmly handle this conflict situation (which he did marvelously...and Alex started screaming again.) Benny got on the phone with the driver's boss to clear up the misunderstanding.
So, at 8pm we drove the boys to "Chick-A-Lay" in Charlottesville, ate dinner, got them in their PJ's, drove home (they THANKFULLY both fell asleep in the car), got home at 9:45, and put them to bed.
Benny and I collapsed in a heap on the couch.
Anyone wanna go on any trips with us anytime soon? :)
