From Maine to Madness

I was planning on detailing our trip to Maine and the fun things we did , but I need to tell this horror travel story first......

After a wonderful week of relaxing our time to travel home drew near. The night before we're supposed to leave, my husband comes up with the idea, that instead of getting up at dark-thirty, we should right then and there pack up and drive to Portland to find a hotel room near the airport. That way we will have a good night sleep in air conditioning and not have to get up quite so early for our 7:00 am flight. Great idea! Only he throws this out at 9:30 at night which is when ideas like that are hatched. So we scramble to finish packing everything, which means I am throwing stuff in bags without thought ( note this for later). Drive to Portland, find a room and get to bed around 11, I'm guessing. Up again at 5:10 and out the door. Get to the airport and drop off the rental car and begin to check-in at 5:45 am. This is where the fun begins........

Expedia with whom I booked the flights, changed a flight way back in April. I vaguely remember receiving an email about it. Well, apparently Delta never confirmed the change and won't reissue a new ticket. The young lady at the counter assures me we are on the flight and proceeds to wait on hold with the Delta help desk.......for 30 minutes. All the while assuring me we are on the flight. Then she hangs up and states that she can't help me. Delta won't reissue the tickets. I have to call Expedia and get them to fix it. I become very irate which is rare for me. So much so that my husband takes our daughter and they move out of earshot. Mind you, I'm not using profanity, just good old sarcasm as I attempt to get hold of someone at Expedia and express my wrath at the same time. Of course I am put on hold for 20 minutes.....It is now 6:40. A nice young man answers and I blurt out my problem, he puts me on hold and calls Delta. At 10 minutes to 7 he instructs me to approach the counter and to have them print out the tickets which they do. We then run to security. Strip as instructed and go through the detectors. Then one of the TSA guys asks, "Whose bag is this?". Of course, it's mine. And of course he has to take it into custody and go through it. Meanwhile, I hand the tickets to hubby and tell him to run to the gate to hold the plane.

Well, remember the throwing stuff in where ever? Yeah, I packed a very dangerous bottle of Blueberry syrup in the carry-on bag. Do I want to send it? I don't have time for that! I tell him to throw it away. He zips up my bag , releases it from custody. I grab it and run like the wind to the gate, just in time to see the gateway tunnel pull away and the plane door close. I know we're not getting on that plane, but I feebly walk to the window and wave my ticket hoping the pilot will see and take pity. No such luck. So then a Delta employee comes out and we ambush him. He gets his update from the people downstairs, who I'm sure have filled him in and given me a few choice names. He informs me that they will have to reschedule us on the 1:30 flight to Atlanta. I'm resigned at this point. But what makes me and my husband enraged is that the plane we're supposed to be on doesn't pull away from the gate for another 15 minutes.

So we get tickets re-issued for the 1:30 at no extra cost to us the agent explains rolling his eyes. He is lucky I have snapped back to calm self, 'cause I had a quick flash of pinching his little head off. How can I be upset, when they have even been so kind to give us each food vouchers? So we wait for the next 6 hours in the tiny airport of Portland. It's not too bad. I have the opportunity to shop and buy another bottle of Blueberry Syrup in the gift shop that bares a resemblance to one I lost earlier. Hmmm? Apparently, this bottle has been given the TSA sacred blessing to go on the plane. The little one has her DVD player, and hubby has his new Iphone to play with. I do have a new book to read thanks to my sister in-law. The time passes s-l-o-w-l-y, but it passes. We have lunch at the small pub with our vouchers. Upon showing them the waitress says, "Oooo, that means you are having a bad day." She has no idea how bad it will get.

The next plane arrives on time. We get our things ready to board when they announce that there is a maintenance issue, and 20 minutes later that maintenance issue (a crack in the windshield) cancels the flight. Mind you I am NOT going to get on any plane that has a crack in the windshield or had a windshield just replaced anyway!!! We approach the counter to our eyeball rolling guy, again, and figure out how to get back home. One more flight to Atlanta at 5:55, but nothing to Myrtle Beach. We have to choose another airport. The closest is Charleston, which is a 2 hour drive, but Delta will pay for a cab, and the cabs have to accept the voucher, he says. We take it along with more food vouchers, and hunker down to wait another 4 1/2 hours.

I have to say my kid handled all of this very well. We take her out for a walk or two. We each wander away several times. Time is drawing near to the next flight, and while we are eating dinner, we hear that due to severe weather in Atlanta all incoming and outgoing flights are suspended. Our flight is now scheduled to leave at 7:09. They are calling customers up one by one to check connections based on the new time. When we are called, I have decided that I want to try again tomorrow. The travel Gods are speaking, and I can't ignore them. I can try again tomorrow, says the new agent, who is cuter and more personable, but since we would be able to make our connection 'cause it too is delayed, I would have to pay for 3 new tickets, and that there are no openings on flights until tomorrow afternoon, and no hotel rooms. Another common unknown is that if your flight is delayed or canceled due to weather, the airline doesn't have to pay to put you up any where.

So we are at the mercy of Delta, which by this point my husband figures out stands for Don't Ever Leave The Airport. Going into hour 13, we have seen businesses open and close, and shifts change. At some point, the weather clears and we all board in a mad rush and take off from Portland around 8 ish. We land uneventfully, Thank God, at 10:15, but we don't get a gate for another 20 minutes. Luckily (as if luck had anything to do with this day) our connection has been delayed until 11:20, and is close by.

I'm not sure when we board and take off, but when we land in Charleston it is 1:20 am. Little one has slept the entire flight. We of course have to wait for our luggage which surprisingly arrives. Sigh of relief, right? Wrong!! Remember when that guy said they have to take the voucher for payment? Yeah, that is true, but what he didn't say is that the cab doesn't have to accept the fare to take us two hours away at 2 am. So after waiting 30 min. A cab is found and the driver is an older southern woman named, Bernice. We load up the van and head out. Great I think, I'm going to sleep. Well, Bernice is not the stellar driver we had hoped for. In fact, she is weaving between the lanes, slows down at odd places, and decides to straddle the center line on our two lanes going north. If I didn't know better I would have said she was drunk, but I'm guessing just tired. As the trip goes on, I'm trying to talk to her to keep her awake. Of course, she has to turn to look at me so she swerves into the grass every so often. I never thought I would be more scared in a van than flying. I was terrified! Thankfully, my daughter is sound asleep, unaware! About 30 min away we call our friend and ask him to meet us at the mall instead of the airport. Bernice is not phased and states it will give her a chance to rest a little so she can drive better.... uhh, yeah.....

Well, we made it home alive at 5:00 am, just shy of 24 hours after we began. Dropped dead into bed. What a way to end a vacation..........But on the upside, Maine was great!