Enjablog

Purpose: Tour a ship with an admiral and some captains (and various less important people).
Destination: Marinette, Wisconsin

Scheduled departure: 2:55pm Monday from National -> Chicago/O’Hare -> Green Bay
Status: Canceled.

Rescheduled departure: 5:45pm (same as above)
Status: Delayed.
Actual departure: 6:30
Scheduled connecting flight: 7:00

So, we (boss and coworker) go up to the ticket counter to find out if there’s another connection that we can catch later. Nope. But we can catch an 8 o’clock flight with a different airline connecting through Detroit. Ok, that sounds fine. We’ll get there at 11 and have to drive another hour… but they’re an hour behind, so our 8am meeting is kind of like 9am. So that’s not that bad.

Oh, but there’s a catch. It’s now 6:15. The plane to Chicago is about to depart and we can’t get our bags back. It’s just overnight, right? That’s not that big a deal… Oh, but wait. Thanks to the whole no liquids/gels things my coworkers and I had all checked our bags of stuff for overnight. All we had with us were laptops and papers for work. Our bags would arrive from Chicago Tuesday morning at 10am. Lotta good that does us for meeting The Admiral at 8am.

Well, no choice now. We can’t get on the plane. We can’t get our stuff off the plane. Sigh…

Let me mention at this point that I went to the airport straight from work. I was wearing slacks, a dress shirt, and heels. The fancy clothes aren’t that big a deal, since we were just touring the ship and not actually doing anything on it. As long as I was careful about not leaning on walls, I’d be ok. But dress shoes? No way.

We have almost 2 hours before our next flight at this point, so I start calling Ian. He doesn’t answer. I call again. I text message him. I email him. I call again. About half an hour later, he calls back and tells me he’s not feeling well. But even so, I have him drag himself out of bed to bring me a bag full of stuff — shoes, jeans, shirt. He makes it there just in time for us to go through security and head to the departure gate. Even with my thorough screening (they made me stand in the kiddie area behind the plexiglass!), we get there before they begin boarding. Woo!

Mostly uneventful the rest of the flight. My reading light on the plane went out. My boss’s iPod slid off his seat during landing and slid 6 rows up. We got to ride the tram at the Detroit airport. Got to Green Bay and headed out to the hotel.

Total time at the airport/on the plane: 8 hours.

Stay tuned — Tuesday’s adventures.