The End of vacation, first

I seem to have this 'thing' with vacations. When I'm on vacation, I escape the real world. We were lucky enough to recently return from a wonderful vacation, so wonderful that there were times that I forgot I had a job and responsibilities. But this 'thing' I have with vacations is the return home.

Despite arranging our travel to allow for a day rest to ease back into the world of reality, that wasn't in the cards this time. E. J. had to leave two days before us to head back to work, so it was just Kathryn and me on our 'adventure' (that's a really nice way to put it) back to Texas.

I was first alerted of the flight delay via e-mail before we arrived at the airport, but I wasn't overly worried since there was still plenty of time to catch our connecting flight in Washington D.C. from Hartford. After saying our goodbye's, we grabbed something to eat at the airport and made our way to hang out at the gate.

Making Aunt Kim and Uncle Andy proud in Hartford

After about 20 minutes at the gate, our flight status was updated and that's when the issues started.

This face reads: "What do you mean we're going to miss our connecting flight out of D. C. due to mechanical issues?"

Our arrival time kept going back and fourth. One minute we were going to make our connecting flight, the next minute it was deemed not possible to make our connecting flight. But, we were told that because the delay was due to mechanical issues, we should get on the plane (whenever it took off) and United would put us up in a hotel and we would catch the plane the next morning. 

So that's what we did.

We also did a lot of this: standing in line. Do you know how difficult it is to make a three year old stand in line? And not just one line. Many, many long lines. If you do know the feeling, I'm sorry. If you don't, I hope you can avoid this.

 

This picture below is highly misleading. It wasn't this easy. I promise. It was also really entertaining (?) at the customer service desk in D.C. (behind about 50 other people) because I felt like I was on a reality show with people yelling, cursing and all around pissed that they missed their planes. I won't even go into the pain of getting everything situated, but we finally got it done.

Fun fact about Washington/Dulles airport. If you want to get outside, you must take no less than 7 escalators, a tram and walk about a mile to escape that joint. It becomes quite the hike with a rolling carry-on, 2 back packs, a purse and a three year old at 11 p.m.

Her first taxi ride. 11 p.m. in Washington. Usually when one is in a taxi at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night you're 21 and about to have a great night out with friends. Not so much the case this time.

At 12 a.m. we were showered. Not that's it's obvious or anything, but we didn't have a brush or a comb (they were in the checked baggage) and I'm in my pj's (a towel). Class act. Kathryn lucked out and all of her clothes were with us in her carry-on. I was also very lucky because a pair of my CLEAN underwear was in her bag. Thank goodness!

Four hours of sleep later, I was up and getting us ready to catch the shuttle to the airport. More lines, frustration and exhaustion and we were on our plane.

The smile of success.

We did it.



Fourteen extra hours later, we made it home safely. To catapult us further into reality, the next day I was back at work attempting to play catch up, I also got a last minute dentist appointment to confirm my suspicion that I had a cavity that was bugging me during vacation, then grocery shopping and unloading groceries in the pouring rain. 

"Welcome back to the real world," screamed the universe. 

To be continued...with happy vacation stories!