Sharing Our Pain: A Travel Ordeal

We made it back home from Western New York in one piece (well, two pieces), but it wasn’t easy. Friday’s ordeal only further justifies my decision to stop traveling for a while. It was everything I hate about air travel: ground stops, check-in problems, waiting on the tarmac, lost luggage, spotty customer service.

It is always rough when the voyage home leaves a bitter taste. Too many vacations end that way, with a week of fun soured by one rough afternoon. But hey, that’s travel! You have to weather the bad to enjoy the good.

I started to write today’s entry as a full chronology of our afternoon and evening, but halfway through, I realized this would be the most boring ten-page blog ever. Let’s boil it down to the highlights:

- Beware trusting your GPS too completely. Passing an exit that clearly says "Airport" because your Australian tour guide has you taking a different exit further up the highway might not be the best call. (Also, file this under "Normal Girl is always right" – words to live by).

- If you’re behind schedule, pay-at-the-pump will suffer communications errors. You can count on it.

- Don’t brag if you have a direct flight while your colleague / friend / lover has a connection on the way home. You might land at the same time.

- Two hours of high winds at Logan create quite the mess.

- Shame on Delta baggage services. In this case, an ENTIRE FLIGHT DID NOT RECEIVE ITS LUGGAGE. After initially turning away all those passengers at the baggage claim office with a snide "your baggage hasn’t been unloaded yet" they made the announcement the luggage was coming on a later flight. This announcement came ninety-seven minutes after the flight landed--I’m pretty sure they could have figured this out much more quickly. Delta Airlines, you’ll be hearing from me! (In their defense, the lost luggage was delivered to the apartment eight hours later).

- The shuttles connecting the terminals at Logan are great...if you can find one. It took me thirty-five minutes to get from Terminal C to Terminal A. Apparently if you have a map of Central Parking, it is possible to walk, but I don’t keep one handy. Maybe after Friday, I will.

- $35 to upgrade my $59 one-way fare on AirTran was totally worth it.

- Few things are more annoying than sitting on the tarmac waiting for your gate to open up...

- ...especially when you’re sitting behind a jerk who spends the full forty-five minutes on his Nextel cell phone (you know, where you can hear the person on the other side?) complaining to his mother, then his girlfriend, then his mother, then his girlfriend. Drunken Bleached Hair Dude Wearing Sunglasses and Cowboy Boots, you are lucky to be alive.

- Always bring playing cards; you never know when you’ll need them.

It was a great trip, and I’m glad I tagged along. Come back soon for postings on Niagara Falls, the George Eastman House, and the Museum of Play (!). They’ll be a lot more cheerful, I promise! Here's a fun picture of us on Sesame Street.