kittenscribble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kittenscribble) wrote2005-01-02 05:02 pm
kittenscribble) wrote2005-01-02 05:02 pm
Entry tags:
home at last
00:00 - New Year, East Coast time. Toast falling of ball in Times Square. Actual coming of new year not expected for another three hours on West Coast but we need to be in bed early for crack-of-dawn New Years' Day flight.
01:00 - Return to aunt's house to commence packing.
03:00 - Briefly surprised by general noise of celebration, then go downstairs and toast West Coast new year.
06:30 - Rise from bed, having accomplished ~1.5 hours sleep. Eat breakfast kindly provided by aunt who had risen pre-crackofdawn, then depart for airport.
08:00 - Return rental car, get through security and customs, and wait at the gate.
09:00 - And wait at the gate.
10:00 - We are told that airplane is suffering "maintenance issues." Begin to be concerned as layover window at Phoenix (already tight) is eaten into.
11:00 - Becomes obvious that we are not going to make the transfer at Phoenix. Long lines at agent counter as fellow passengers suffer similar realizations.
11:30 - Finally manage to speak to agent who informs us that we can have a flight to Las Vegas at 7pm local (22:00 after New Years), and can from thence transfer to DC. However, due to extreme last-minuteness of things, check-in baggage must remain on plane to Phoenix, and will hopefully make its way to Dulles. We shrug, call relatives and exit airport.
12:00 - Brief hold-up at Canadian customs, despite the fact that, um, we never actually left Canada.
12:30 - Arrive back at aunt's place, to delight of little cousin. I collapse in guest room.
14:00 - Am woken up and summoned to New Years dim sum with grandparents. Absolute heaven.
20:00 - Arrive at airport, again. Explain to a succession of agents the situation regarding lack of check-in baggage and having to pass through border despite computers' belief that we are already in the states.
22:30 - Plane takes off late.
25:00 - Arrival at Las Vegas. Upon running up to gate of next flight, we discover that a) it is already boarding, b) it is overbooked, and c) we have standby tickets and therefore no priority. Stewardesses scrounge three empty seats, one less than we need. Discussion with agent reveals that next flight for DC area will not occur until the following night. This is deemed generally unacceptable; mother volunteers to stay behind that her children might go to school/work on Monday.
25:30 - Plane takes off for DC, bearing three siblings scattered throughout plane, all of them missing their mother and therefore sleeping badly. I suffer extra guilt, having inadvertently carried off Mom's mocha.
30:00 - Plane lands at Dulles. Phone rings the moment it has reception; it is mother, remembering that we cannot take the van home, since she has the parking slip. I promise to figure something out. Meanwhile, apparently poor mother had been only one of a large mob of stranded/displaced travellers; she had only just gotten to her hotel room.
30:30 - Finally manage to break baggage claim counter girl off from conversation w/ boyfriend and call her attention to our missing checked baggage. She claims ignorance as to where it is. Slightly more informed ticket counter agent theorizes that baggage was probably left in Phoenix. We submit claim forms, after waking up poor Mom to get baggage claim slip numbers.
31:00 - Taxi and shuttle deemed slow and expensive compared to our great need to be home; other sibling too sleepy to drive out and pick us up. I manage to find parking agents and tell the sad story of why we do not have parking slip.
31:15 - Finally remember where we parked van, way back on Christmas Eve morning.
32:00 - Arrive at mother's house, to be welcomed enthusiastically by mother's cat. Take brothers out shopping for food, that they might have stuff for dinner and lunch the next day.
37:00 - Arrive at own house. Get "where have you been?" treatment by cat. Unpack groceries, stumble upstairs.
40:00 - Regain consciousness. Tentatively ready to begin new year.
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(though in a relative way we're lucky; one of the cousins was stuck for 24 hours in the Ottawa airport on her way to Vancouver. O_o Snowstorm or something. Scary.)
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Sometimes it's good to be the lap.
Happy New Year!
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