The Joys of Travel

Our flights to California went off without a hitch, in fact I think we landed early in both DFW and SNA. Our flight back was a different story. We had a layover in DFW that was extended due to weather in the Washington, DC area. The 2:30 flight to DC was cancelled, and the 4:30 and 5:30 flights were delayed for hours. Our 7:30 flight was only delayed 50 minutes. Before we boarded we were warned that we might be diverted to Dulles because the runways at Reagan were closed or something.

I sat on the plane, bored, uncomfortable (I ate way to much in California and my digestive system was suffering for it), and a little annoyed. The pilot came on over the PA system and announced that Reagan was keeping the  runway open until midnight, so we would be able to land there. Yay! Well, 100 feet from the runway (per the pilot) we were waived off. I noticed we were doing a fly over and was very confused. It was probably 11:55. At 12:02 (am) the pilot informed us that the tower had waved us off because there was still a plane on the runway (translation: near miss) and they had closed the runway and diverted us to Dulles.

Diverted? Oh, Ross and I were mad. I had figured we'd be home by about 1 am, but now we had no idea what time we'd get home. You see, our car was at Reagan, so we would have to get a cab over there and then drive home.

We landed at about 12:25 and then sat on the runway. There wasn't much crew left, so we had to wait in line for a terminal. Well, we ended up in a remote area, so we had to wait for a people mover to take us to the main terminal. The people on our flight did not know how to cram in together. Seriously, they thought they were as crammed as they could get, but I've seen subways much tighter than that.

Ross had voluntarily checked his back (for free at the gate) so we had to wait for it at baggage claim. But again, they didn't have much crew at 1am, so we waited quite a while. At some point an AA rep came out and said that he would be handing out taxi cab vouchers to Reagan airport and we had to pack in 4 to a cab. Once Ross got his bag we found another couple to share a cab with. They were quite nice. The thing is we ended up standing in line for a cab until 2:30 am. (We had to top off our trip with more waiting in line.)  I was so tired, I couldn't be cranky anymore. It was bad, but the line extended way far behind us--at least another hour, if not two. I thought about taking a photo, but I was really tired, and didn't really want to remember standing in line for so long.

The ride to Reagan was a lot shorter than I thought it was going to be. We got to our car, and started the long drive home. I unfortunately sent us on a roundabout way and I'm 99.9% sure that Ross got hit by a speed camera. Oops. We arrived home at 4:30 am! I hadn't slept at all on the plane. I called my boss and let her know I'd be in by noon. I'm still recovering from that mess. Ross is beyond pissed with the tower at Reagan. At least we got home safely....