Yesterday was a horrible day, it was probably one of the worst travel days I’ve had in years…
It started fine - at least until I got outside the hotel. I had pre-paid and pre-reserved my transfer to the airport, so I figured that if I got downstairs and checked out by 7:00 I would have not problem making my 7:15 transfer to the airport… And almost didn’t make it on the van… It would seem that the driver had already been there for 10 minutes and there were 18 folks trying to get on the van… They didn’t have reservations though and after reminding the driver that I had paid and reserved my trip I made it on the van…
So it was off to put my bag in the van - and I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing and managed to throw out my back in the process…
I hobbled into the van - sat down and just as the door closed realized I left my travel pillow back in my room…
On to the white knuckle drive to the airport… It probably wasn’t that bad, but I was in so much pain that I had a death grip on the seat.
I made it through the airport with no problem - go to the gate and waited… then waited… and waited some more… Five minutes before the scheduled departure the gate agent shows up and gives us some information… First off a note to gate agents - If it’s 5 minutes before departure and the plane isn’t here - it’s obvious that our flight has been delayed, at this point you’re better off telling why the flight’s been delayed than just informing us that we’re delayed. We waited an hour for the flight to arrive because they apparently needed a flight crew. However I’ll give the airline credit - they turned the flight around in 20 minutes once the plane arrived.
I was extremely hopeful that things would start getting better now - and arrived in Chicago to discover that my next flight was delayed at least another hour… On the plus side it felt better walking than sitting and I got lunch - but it was another hour stuck in an airport.
So I finally get to San Francisco, and pay for parking. The long term parking there requires you to pre-pay to exit and there are not manned booths at the exits, and of course I get to the exit and discover that the gate won’t read my parking stub. I had to back out of the exit gate and drive over to the office to get show them that I paid and get them to manually open the gate so I could go home…
As expected - I got stuck in traffic, in San Francisco, in the MINI - and with my back bothering me it hurt like hell to shift gears..
It was a difficult night - but finally things are starting to look better…
