This Made it all Worthwhile

As I eluded to in an earlier post, my travels home to the great Northwest were a bit nightmarish to put it mildly. I'm pretty sure the problems all stemmed from me stupidly saying to multiple people, "At least I don't have to worry about weather related problems on my flight home (non-stop London to Seattle), it never snows in Seattle!" Boy did I ever come to curse the day I uttered those words...

After a 10+ hour flight, we began our decent into Seattle through a heavy layer of clouds. If you are familiar with the general weather patterns of Seattle, you can imagine my shock at when we dropped through the clouds to see heavy snow fall and nearly 6 inches of accumulated snow on the ground. This rare happening lead to complete chaos at airport. They couldn't get the runways plowed fast enough to get planes off the ground steadily and they didn't have enough de-icing trucks. This led to a general back-up at the gates - leaving our plane with no gate to park at. We ended up sitting on some remote, unused runway for 2 more hours before we were finally able to park and deplane!

Despite having been stuck on the plane for over 12 hours, I was still in rather bright spirits - I was nearly home. Just one more short flight from Seattle to Spokane and I still had plenty of time to catch it! While waiting to claim my luggage, I called my mom to let her know I'd made it to Seattle. Here's how our conversation unfolded:

Me: Hi Mom! I'm in Seattle!

Mom: Hi! You still sound like you're in pretty good spirits.

Me: Yeah, it was a long flight, but I survived.

Mom: Oh...you don't know...

Me: Know what?

Mom: The Spokane airport is closed. No flights are landing here for the rest of the day.

Me: Ugh! I guess I'll see when the next flight is that they can get me on.

That's right! Although it was after 2:00AM London time, I held it together and didn't have a meltdown. I was pretty proud of myself.

After collecting my luggage and making my way through customs, I found the Southwest ticket counter and explained the situation to them. Here's how that conversation went (mind you, the date is December 18th):

Me: I was supposed to be on one of the canceled flights to Spokane.

Agent: Nothing's landing in Spokane!

Me: I realize that; what are my options?

Agent: I don't really know what to tell you. You could try to get here early and fly stand-by tomorrow.

Me: Can't you just rebook me on another flight?

Agent: Well, the first seat I have available on a flight to Spokane is January 3rd.

Me: Oh...wow...okay, when do I need to be here to be sure I'm at the top of the stand-by list.

Agent: Get here by 7AM and you should be fine.

(That's right, still no meltdown on my part!)

While I was taking care of all of this, my mom was working on booking me a hotel room nearby. I took a shuttle there looking forward to finally getting some sleep. Fast forward a few hours and I'm wide awake in my room. Unable to sleep partly because of the 8 hour time difference and partly because I still have no idea how I'm getting home.

At about 4AM, a half hour before the Southwest ticket counter is scheduled to open, I head back to the airport to guarantee a spot at the head of the line. When I get to the airport I find that not only has the chaos increased 10 fold from the night before, but I also discover that the Southwest stand-by line is so long that I can not find the end of it! That's not an exaggeration either - I followed it, weaving all over the terminal, and never got to the end. This, in combination with having gotten only 2 hours of sleep in about as many days, was the final straw. I'm embarrassed to say that I started crying in the middle of the airport! Then I called my mom crying. Then Jason. Lucky for me, they are both awesome. Through a combined effort they were able to figure out that there was a bus I could take to get to Spokane and get me a ticket on it.

After a $50 cab ride to a really sketchy bus station, I still had a 6 hour wait to find out if (1) the pass would be open and (2) there would be enough buses to accommodate everyone. But finally, I made it on a bus and was headed home! The 5 hour bus ride went pretty quickly. I was so excited when we finally exited the freeway in Spokane. I let myself believe that we had made it! But, could it really be that easy? No. As we were turning onto the road that the bus station is on (we were only 2 blocks away!), the bus hit an icy patch and crashed into a light pole. The side windows started to bulge and crack (luckily they were made of shatter proof glass!). Then the bus got stuck. The driver left us all on the bus while he attempted to dig us out, but everyone on that bus was sick and tired of traveling and ready to get home. We stormed the door, opened the luggage storage bins under the bus, and got our own luggage out. Then, because there were no sidewalks to walk on (they were all covered in 5 feet of snow), all 40 of us walked down the middle of the downtown street, luggage in tow, to finally make it to the bus station. We were quite a site!

I have never been so thankful to make it home! Now, you may be wondering what it was that made this all worthwhile. Mom, Dad, Kyle, and Maureen, I love you guys!...it was really great to see you! But, seeing this face was actually what did it for me!

Isn't our niece the cutest thing you've ever seen?!