Saturday, December 20th
I was woken up at 9:30am, or thereabout, to get the house ready for our almost week-long visit to Washington. Nothing was wrong at that point; all four of us are busy stuffying last minute items into our suitcases, checking things off the list on the refrigerator as we get them done, and making sure that we still get out of the house by 12pm, since our flight is in St. Louis and in the later afternoon. We left the house by noon with no problem, getting two minutes away before having to turn around and collect a birthday present for Grandma, then we were off again, but not before dropping by McDonald's first for brunch.
We arrived in St. Louis without a hassle and get through check-in with minimal issues. It's just Mom, Dad and I then; we dropped Chris off upon arriving at Lambert, as he had a flight that was an hour earlier than ours, to Denver. We were bound for Minneapolis. When we got to the gate and settled down, we were all wholly unaware of the massive storm making its way through Washington and the Pacific Northwestern states. Our plane is due to leave around 4; 4 comes and goes, and they said the plane was delayed until 5. 5 comes by; it changes to 6. Eventually, we found out the plane was cancelled - leaving us without a chance to fly out until tomorrow.
With mom at the phone and me at the computer trying to book a flight out of St. Louis to Seattle, the problem child of the whole ordeal, we ended up staying in Lambert for a good hour before momentarily giving up to get dinner, a hotel, and try again. Another half hour at the hotel and we deicded to call tech support for the NWA website -- I wasn't able to rebook my flight like the website said I could. Turns out, we should have done that earlier; we found out in no more than five minutes that we had another flight in the morning, flying us to Las Vegas and then to Seattle by Alaska Airlines. It's for 7 in the morning, but we don't mind - so long as we get through this time.
Sunday, December 21st
7am, we take off the next day; the flight is completely fine and on schedule to Las Vegas. We had an hour or so layover, so took our time ambling through Las Vegas's McCarran airport. Our flight was to Seattle was supposed to leave at 12; when it struck noon, we noticed that the time had changed to 1:30. 1:30 progressed on - and eventually, that flight was cancelled as well. Our choices were growing slimmer at this point, since Seattle's weather didn't leave many options. Again, we began braving the swamped phone lines while I checked out Alaska's website - but I couldn't access the reservations to rebook because the tech support I talked to the night before didn't give me a confirmation code. A good time passed as we sat in the airport, me on the computer, Mom on the phone, Dad in the monsterous help desk line. Figuring that NWA.com might have something I can work with, I checked it out again. To my surprise, I discovered that NWA had booked us a flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles and LA to Seattle -- I figured that they thought we were stranded in Minneapolis. I guess I should give them kudos for reassigning us, though a phonecall or the like would have been nice to let us know of this change.
By the time I told Mom about this, we're all beginning to feel a little worn thin from the rebooking and cancelations. The good news was that LA was only four hours away - so, we decided to make the best of things and grab some In-n-Out to take down the strip of Las Vegas before driving to LA. An hour-long traffic jam on the interstate prolongued our arrival to LA, making it midnight - 2am our time - when we finally got there. Figuring that since our flight in the morning was fairly early and we didn't want to risk LA traffic, we set out to get a hotel close to the airport; the first two we visited were booked full for the kind of room we wanted. The third was fine... save that when we pulled in, four cop cars were arresting someone with a bag over his head. Great, right?
We were exhausted, and rightfully so, so we hit the hay pretty earlier, ready to get up the next day for our 1pm flight.
Monday, December 22nd
The first thing we saw when we got inside checkin was a man standing near the front; after an awkward question, he informed us that our flight had been canceled... Back to square one, now. Meanwhile, Chris has gotten through, as has his girlfriend - by some miracle. The planes have stacked up at this point, and regardless of the fact that SeaTac airport is completely clear, there are too many plantes to fly in at once; we got the short end of the stick.
Disheartened and travel-battered, we started finding alternatives again. I had no luck with the website this time around - Mom was put on hold eventually, but for a great time. Dad had gotten into the line here, over a 2 hour wait. The chances were looking slim now; a train could get us to Sacramento, but from Sacramento to Seattle, it was booked full. Buses claimed they could get us through, but Portland, Orgeon was completely shut down and required chains for tires, so that was unlikely. Aside from spending a ridiculous amount for a rental one-way to Seattle, the rental companies wouldn't allow chains so that wouldn't work either. The planes wouldn't get us to Seattle until 6pm Christmas day- and even then, it wasn't for sure that we'd actually get through.
Our resilience failed. With no where to go but home, we booked a flight back to St. Louis, forgetting that those who weren't able to make it to Seattle in the first place were staying home for Christmas. At least, we told ourselves, we had some time in LA - a mini vacation, if you will. So we rented a car and drove about, visiting the lights in Pasedena and seeing all the old places Mom and Dad grew up around, stopping at an old, familiar restuarant for dinner: Fu-Shings. (Delicious!) It'd been a long day, so we got a hotel and tuckered in for the night. Tomorrow, we'd be heading home.
Tuesday, December 23rd
Our flight, in early afternoon, gave us enough time to drive down and pick up empanadas at Tito's Market, a mexican place Mom loved (and still loves, granted). It was worth the drive, but not the messed up flight plans. The flight to St. Louis was no problem - but somewhere between, we remembered the folks who weren't in Seattle and made a phone call. In the least, we had somewhere to go and someone to be with on Christmas. Once we got to St. Louis, we got a hotel and slept, taking off early the next day to make it to Kansas and family, at last. We arrived there the next day, midday and spent until the day after Christmas with them. Christmas had been saved - just not had in the way we expected.
The most we could be grateful for were the relatives who couldn't make it. Without them, we'd have spent Christmas all by ourselves... and that's no fun.
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