Travel

This weekend I traveled to Knoxville to visit my sister and her family, most notably my niece. I checked the weather the day before and it looked like there was going to be some rain, but not enough to worry about. Boy, was I wrong.

I got to the airport with time to spare and the board listed my flight as on time. Groovy, but again wrong. We all got on the plane and then the pilot came on to say there was going to be a delay. A few minutes later the pilot came on again saying that there was going to be a long delay and that we could de-board once they got the jetbridge back in place. Luckily we hadn't actually pulled away from the gate.

Most of us on the plane went back out to the terminal to get the low-down on the situation. Turns out there was severe weather in Philadelphia which was holding us up. There was also severe weather in DC and NY making it difficult to reroute people. I got in the line at the counter and proceeded to wait my turn.

I've been in similar situations before and it always amazes me how rude people can get. A number of people were yelling at the woman doing her best to reroute people. They of course did this without waiting in line first. Apparently it is okay to cut in line if you just need one thing... Don't get me wrong, I can understand being upset that the flight was delayed, but why take it out on someone who didn't cause the problem? It's hard to even say it is the airline's fault since the weather was an ongoing situation (as opposed to the downstream rescheduling problems caused by not carrying margin in the system).

I got lunch in Boston, and eventually got on the flight to Philadelphia. I also got a new connection scheduled since we were still on the ground when my connecting flight to Knoxville was supposed to leave.

I'm not a big fan of the Philadelphia airport, at least the parts of it I've seen. Maybe I'm just unhappy that they have a terrible selection of restaurants. Also since everyone and their mother had a delayed flight, the one bar in the F terminal was packed. It actually took close to twenty minutes to get a seat. And the bar stayed back.

I will say I talked to a number of interesting people as we all passed the time. My sister always said that she likes airport bars. The people are interesting, there is no pressure, and most of them are just there to pass a bit of time.

After a number of hours at the bar in the terminal in Philadelphia, I went to the gate to await my flight. The scheduled 6:50 departure became 7:10, and the 8:10. Another flight to Knoxville was leaving at 8:20. That flight (unlike the one I was booked on) was direct to Knoxville. Unfortunately the Royal Stiltsters (or something like that) from Belgium had apparently taken all the seats on that flight, and even overbooked it.

Eventually I got on the plane to DC. It being a smallish plane, I had to gate check my bag. Not such a bad thing, but a bit annoying. Anyway, the first part of the flight was fine, but the descent into DC was... exciting. Depending on the wind direction, the approach into DC can be business as usual, or a bit harrowing. This was the harrowing approach and in bad weather. Due to airspace restrictions a good deal of flight space near Reagan National is off limits. So when the wind is blowing towards DC, you have to make a sharp descent and a crazy turn to avoid the airspace and still land upwind. As an aerospace engineer, I should know everything is fine, but I was still quite white-knuckled on landing.

Remember the gate checked bag? Well, because this was a continuing flight, it was the same airplane. I had the foresight to mark the bag's tag with my final destination. Yeah. Anyway, we didn't get to arrive at a gate, but had a bus come out to ferry people between the airplane and the terminal. Since I was continuing on, I didn't have to get off, right? Actually I did, to claim my bag and give it right back to the guy. Apparently they go through this because sometimes they send the bag with the bus if no one claims it. Anyway, those of us staying on the flight, gave our stubs to the flight attendent so he could call the gate and let them know we were already on board.

With all the excitement in Philadelphia, not everyone had normal seat assignments. Not a big deal, people can cope right? So, when the DC passengers got on the plane there were some problems. An older man found a woman in his assigned seat. So he told her so, except she was on the phone and so not responding quickly enough. The man started yelling at her. She in turn yelled back that she was trying to get a car in Knoxville because everything had fallen through and the man was being rude. The guy yelled at her for holding everyone up by not moving (did I mention that he was standing in the middle of the aisle this whole time, even though he could have sat next to her and let everyone go by? He demanded to see her ticket stub, which of course she had surrendered to the flight attendent.

The flight crew made numerous announcements that people who were continuing the flight had seat assignment issues and that everyone should just take a seat. People didn't just take seats though. They sat and then said they should be in different seats. It even seems like too many people got on the plane because there was someone standing when all the seats were full.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I eventually made it to Knoxville, only eight hours after I was supposed to. The real bummer was that when I asked my sister if she was up for a visit, she decided to have a bonfire party to celebrate. Since I didn't get there until after midnight, this meant I missed the party entirely.

But, I did get to spend two full days with my sister, her husband and of course Veronica (my niece). I also got to spend all a day with my brother who drove down from Pennsylvania. Although, he was lucky enough to arrive in time for the party.

The trip back was much less eventful. The rain was pretty bad the whole way, but aside from a few bumps everything was fine. Of course, the rain wasn't very fun when I got back to Boston. It was cold, super windy and raining. It was raining hard enough that when I walked back from the T station my leather shoes soaked through the top!