Well, I thought that my last post would be it until the Route 66 trip later this summer, but not so, dear readers. For those who have been faithful readers of this blog you would have noticed something strange about the beginning of this trip. For those who aren't regular readers I will explain.
If you take a quick look at all of our travels you will notice that when we start on any of our journeys there is usually a snag of some kind to start things off - mostly something that will delay our start by a day. Really! I'm not kidding. Just take a look. It started to become a joke for us. We would actually expect something to happen to start the journey. So, when this trip started and nothing happened I should have realized that it was wrong or bad luck maybe. Anyway, I did have a moment of unease, but figured that our luck had changed. We went through 22 days of travel without any event happening. On our way back from Germany I though, "Whew! Almost home free without incident!" WRONG!!
So let's start on the day we were to leave Germany to fly home. We drove from Munich to Frankfurt the night before to turn in the car we rented and stayed in a hotel that was right in the terminal. The next morning we were 3 hours early to check in since it was an international flight. So by 8am we were in the terminal waiting for our 11am flight home. At 930 an announcement came over the intercom that the plane (which was sitting at the gate!) had a technical issue and they were waiting to see what was going to be done about it. Now during this time Karl and I weren't worried because we had a 3 hour layover at JFK in New York City - no problem. At 10am they took the plane out of the gate! Now we had to wait for a new plane to come in. Do you know that getting a new plane to replace a bad one doesn't happen real quick? Finally at 1pm we were off. Okay, only two hours late and the pilot said that he should be able to make up the time and we should only be about 1 hour late into NYC. Great - then we would still have 2 hours to get through customs, change terminals and board the flight to Rochester. We were staying a few days there so that I could visit Mom.
Now, part 2. After 8 hours in the air we arrive at JFK and taxi into the boarding area. But we arrive at 3pm and our next flight leaves at 4:17. Quick thinking - yeah we may still make it. Start to taxi to the gate and he stops just short of the gate. He had to wait for a tractor to hook up to tow us into the gate (we were a big plane). After sitting the pilot comes over the intercom and tells us that the tractor that was to tow us BROKE DOWN! It is now 3:30- no way we could make our next flight so I am on the phone in the plane to Delta (our next flight) to get us booked onto the later flight of 9:30pm. We did make that flight and arrived in Rochester at 11pm. Today (June 30) we were getting ready to come home to CA.
Part 3. After turning in the car at 1pm we sat in the terminal waiting for our 5:45pm flight to Sac. with a layover in Chicago and be home by 10:35pm. At 4pm I got a text notice that our plane was delayed to 7:30pm which would make us miss our connection in Chicago. So I get on the phone to Southwest and see if there is any other flight we can get out of Rochester to make our Chicago connection. The agent said there wouldn't be any problem because the connecting flight was also delayed and we would get there in time. The weather in Chicago was creating all kinds of havoc with the airlines. Anyways, we didn't worry until I get another text to inform me that the flight out of Rochester was now cancelled!!!! Great! Back on the phone again. Called another carrier and we were working on getting a flight from them- got it all booked and was ready to pay for it when she said that the first flight was delayed and we would miss the connecting flight! So here we sit, still in New York and will, hopefully, be flying out tomorrow.
Here is the number of hours we have wasted in airport terminals in the last two days:
Frankfurt, Germany - 5 hours
JFK - 4 hours
Rochester - 6 hours until flights were cancelled
Total of wasted time - 15 hours
I think I will take Scarlett O'Hara's mantra - "After all, tomorrow will be another day."
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