The trip began with something of a series of unfortunate hiccups. Fortunately,
they all occurred after 11pm (Eastern Time), when we were tired, cranky,
and had been sitting in airplanes for the last eight hours. And as you'll
find soon enough, there's a reason you see no photos at this point.
|
| 10:18am |
We arrived at the airport, and managed
to get checked through all three flights straight on to Charleston
(West Virginia, not South Carolina). |
| 11:09am |
Board kicks off with the quickness to our seats in 18E and 18F.
Just after we settle in, a particularly rude guy of some girth boards,
complaining about the aisles not being wide enough (because it's not
him not being narrow enough). His female companion, however, seems
very nice. Dude is complaining about the bastards at AT&T Wireless
cutting off his mobile phone service, and somehow has the plane's
captain's cell phone to try and work it all out before departure. |
| 11:18am |
We managed to take off right on time,
and we even get drink service on this flight... Diet Pepsi for me,
please. Rude guy doesn't manage to get through to dialing 411, because
the captain's phone is either too complicated (or my suspicion, his
ample fingers being too big). |
| 1:09pm |
The inane chatter of the guys two seats back (20D) was finally starting
to really wear on my nerves. I think the final straw for me was his
clever commentary on preferring small flights to large ones, then
complaining about landing at a single-runway airport surrounded by
a farmer's corn crop. |
| 1:38pm (PDT) / 2:38pm (MDT) |
We arrived for the first
of two plane changes... this first one in Denver. (Hey, we're flying
United -- have you known them to NOT land here?) Gazing out the window,
we got a first-hand peek at just how hard they have
to work here at Denver International. (And yes, I'm pretty sure
she caught me taking the picture... but what's she gonna do?) |
| 2:59pm |
We clear the plane and get up to Gate B32 for the flight to Washington
DC, where we switch planes again. Tubby plays with his laptop and
finds his snazzy wireless service doesn't work here as the vendor
claimed (this would now be strike three of three attempts where it
failed). |
| 3:06pm |
Boarding begins and we manage to get
ourselves back to seats 37F and 37G. Tubby gets to sit next to a lovely,
and not-at-all chatty woman (thankfully). I land myself an aisle seat. |
| 3:29pm |
We depart a minute ahead of schedule, and are informed with the
tail winds, we'll arrive a good 15-20 minutes early. Nifty. |
| 3:42pm |
We have a couple of options for in-flight
movies, and settle on one of the lesser offensive ones (in levels
of poor quality), and sit through Dodgeball (wanna
know how it ends?). |
| 6:22pm (MDT) / 8:22pm (EDT) |
19 minutes early, the tires touch down at Washington
DC. Yea! We're directed to the slightly crowded and overly busy concourse
G, and shuttle over (by shuttle). Once there, we discover that
the food options are limited to heat-lamp variety of California Pizza,
or bagged nuts. We refrain from exploring any of those available options. |
| 9:37pm |
We begin boarding for our flight at
door L, which is apparently the phantom G18 of the concourse. |
| 9:51pm |
The flight attendant announces that we're all aboard, just waiting
for the luggage to be loaded. It appeared that our flight was all
full-up, but with just 30 seats, it wasn't nearly the challenge of
filling a Boeing 777, neither. |
| 9:58pm |
The pilot makes a very similar announcement.
Seemly cryptic as to why the two announcements, but we went with it.
|
| 10:17pm |
The engines revved up... but it was mostly just a tease (sigh).
Reviewing the odd "OXYGEN" plug in the ceiling, we flip
to the aircraft safety card, and sure enough, Tubby's joking of oxygen
mask distribution (take one, pass them on) was pretty
close to reality. |
| 10:23pm |
The actual departure of the aircraft
from Mother Earth. |
| 11:25pm |
We landed only 2 minutes later than the scheduled called for, despite
leaving 28 minutes later than we'd been told to expect. Curious, eh? |
| 11:32pm |
The walk from the
airplane to the terminal is a short one. |
| 11:33pm |
The lights are all off at Avis. Apparently, making a so-called "reservation"
is only useful if you arrive when they plan for us to arrive -- not
when your flight actually comes in. (Never mind that Tubby called
on 24 September to give them our flight number and arrival time, which
is a regularly scheduled arrival of 11:23pm almost every night). The
customer service went above and beyond the call of duty, and updated
our reservation to grant us the honor of picking up our car after
7am tomorrow, when they would open for the day. (Okay, honestly, I
didn't expect someone to return to the terminal to rent us a car,
but it would have been nice.) |
| 11:39pm |
The luggage carousel has been spinning
for a while no, and while everyone from the other plane has picked
up their stuff, no love for the passengers of United Express flight
7879. |
| 11:46pm |
The soothsayer, not warning of the Ides of March, but that there
was no more luggage to bring up. A parade of the 30 passengers (maybe
less by one or two) all queue up at the luggage counter, where a somewhat
overwhelmed young man begins logging the loss into the computer. |
| 12:35am |
We get to the front, provide our contact
phone number (Tubby's mobile phone), and a delivery address -- right
here at the airport. Something about a road trip doesn't allow for
us to lounge by the pool at the hotel waiting for a delivery of some
luggage. The overwhelmed lad hands Tubby a receipt with a pre-written
apology on it from United. |
| 12:38am |
"Cletus" of C&H Taxi transports us the 11 or so miles
($15.87) from the airport to Motel 6. The cab smelled a little off,
but at least he gave up on the idle chit-chat after a few minutes. |
| 12:51am |
We're dropped off at Motel 6 (at exit
95), where Tubby finds confidence in the fact that there is a guy
checking in, and a second one waiting (for something). The second
guy, however, isn't wearing shoes. |
| 12:53am |
We check into room 318, the last non-smoking room, but the TV has
fuzzy reception, so the clerk offered us a 10% discount for the room.
We took it. (Of course, since Motel 6 doesn't offer any discounts
except AARP, we're staying here as though we're retirees -- high life
and wild parties with the Geritol tonight!) |
| 12:55am |
Arriving at the room, two thoughts
cross our collective minds:
- We've been derelict in eating today. The early flight and the
fact we're not breakfast people wasn't a good start. The fast
hop between planes in Denver didn't help, and the crap pizza options
in Washington were not appealing. Plus, it's now closing time
at Wendy's, so while you can eat great even late, you can't do
it THIS late.
- The soda intake is seriously impaired. I expect Tubby to get
very cranky at any moment now.
|
| 1:08am |
Tubby's dial-up service using the same thing as didn't work in the
Denver airport wirelessly doesn't work here, either. No warning, just
a random disconnection error. Lovely. Fortunately, backup connection
from Sprint is doing just fine. |
| 1:41am |
I suggest an adventure from our third-story
suite to the mini-market a hundred yards away, for some snacks and
soda. The idea is rejected, despite Tubby coming down with a sore
throat and probably needing a beverage. |
| 1:49am |
After a compelling argument about the power of almonds as a snack
food versus candy, we headed off to the mini-mart for snacks. And
a Diet Pepsi for me, but naturally my concern was more with the boy's
snack intake for the day. |
| 2:04am |
We made it back in one piece, and
$5.66 lighter for our efforts. In our bounty stands a 20-ounce bottle
of Diet Pepsi for me, a liter of water and a bag of almonds for Tubby...
ooh, and some Oompas candy for me (since I don't have "tubby"
in my name). Mmm, Oompas. |
| 2:26am |
Nuts to this (no pun intended). We're off to sleep, complete with
the nutty and sugary snacks still on our teeth, since unlike Qantas
losing your luggage, United Express doesn't give you a kit or voucher
or anything -- just that crappy apology note. |
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