Titanium Addiction

Monday, December 24, 2007

I still don't understand....

Yesterday was travel day for the family. A seemingly simple trip from Toledo to Aspen involving a car ride, two planes, and a shuttle bus. Not exactly a logistical nightmare by modern standards.

Everything started off just fine, even to the point of only one of my teenage daughters being bitchy at 6 in the morning ( a small miracle). I dropped off everyone at the curb with our mound of gear and proceeded to the parking garage - Another miracle - I found a spot in the garage without having to resort to parking outside! The check in went smoothly and I managed to make it through security just after the rest of the family - sometimes can be as much as a half hour difference.

Our flight to Minneapolis was delayed by 20 minutes waiting for someone to make their connection. Funny, they have never waited for me. I wonder what it takes to be on that list? We took off and it was a relatively smooth flight. Upon arrival, we had about 20 minutes to cross the MSP airport to our next plane. I was sent ahead for food and we all managed to make it. Now the fun begins.

Everybody has boarded the plane, but the door does not get closed. The pilot comes on the PA and announces that they have the wrong database in the control software for landing in Vail!!!! Hello - isn't there a checklist somewhere that should tell them this ahead of time. We are going to be delayed a half hour. No problem, we are not trying to catch another plane. Apparently loading the database is not quite as simple as putting some new software in your Mac. 3 hours later we are ready to go. During the 3 hours, they were kind enough to let us off the plane to search for some high quality terminal food. Funny thing was, they wouldn't tell us how long we could be away from the plane, they might leave at any moment - nice... While we were sitting there, I had the view of the luggage conveyor coming on our plane. Every now and then someone would come by and throw a suitcase or skis onto the conveyor - so they piled up. Keep in mind it was like 10 degrees, windy, and snowing at the time. At one point, a suitcase fell off one of the little trucks and lay on the tarmac about 75 feet from our plane for about 45 minutes. At least 10 luggage trucks drove right past it without stopping. So much for that increased terror threat and not leaving your bags unattended.

We finally took off and made it to Vail where we were to catch a shuttle to Aspen. That all went very smoothly, including hearing the horror story of a college kid coming in from Madison, it took him 36 hours. Made our trip look pretty simple.

A week of telemark skiing here I come!!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!

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