My wife is currently traversing the globe on her trip over to Australia, having left here yesterday at 2:03pm from the MSP airport. I dropped her off and then spent the next four and a half hours making a two and a half hour trip back from the Twin Cities. The snow was blowing so badly that I couldn’t go faster than about 25 to 45 mph and when the truckers have their hazzards on and are barely moving, you know it’s bad. Talk about nervewreaking.
So, we got up to MSP a bit later than we had hoped, mostly because we had to screw around with baggage and so forth, but we got there around 12:30 or so, parked, and headed in, upon which my wife rolled her ankle when her big-ass pullman twisted on the escalator and landed on her calf. I went and quickly pulled some cash from the ATM for her, then headed up to ticketing.
Got 2nd in line and got to the counter pretty quickly and she did the electronic check-in dealy. After which we threw our bags on the scale and asked the United Airlines woman if she’d check her bags through all the way to Sydney so she didn’t have to handle them again. She asked who we were flying through, and we told her, “Qantas”, and she asked for her tickets. She then did a tappity,tappity thing on the computer for a bit, then looked up and said, “I can’t do that. You don’t travel until tomorrow.”
Our jaws dropped. “WhaaaaaaAAAAAAATTT???”
“Yeah,” she said, “you fly out of LA on the 29th.”
Five people in line, including the TSA security guard, simultaneously said, “It IS the 29th!”
She looked very befuddled for a minute, then shook her head and said, “Oh, right, yes, of course. I was looking at something else,” and carried on checking in Yolanda’s luggage. I could have strangled her. I’m like, “I know this is right, I booked these myself!” The guy behind us in line gave me a wry smile and said, “Nice way to start a vacation, eh?” I could only nod in disbelief.
The goodbye was quick and painless, thankfully, mostly due to the fact that by the time she got checked in it was 1pm and she had to board at 1:33, so I walked her directly down to the security line, kissed her quick, and sent her into the line. To make it easier, I just walked off and out of the airport right away, as we had agreed to make it quick and simple for the both of us.
I then spent a long time driving home in the crappy weather; thankfully, barbershop rehearsal was cancelled so I didn’t have to turn around and go back up to Mason City, but I wouldn’t have, given the weather. Of course, that means that Wednesday I have practice to make up for it.
Yolanda then called me from the Denver airport, and then again from LAX, mostly to let me know she was ok and to burn up time between flights. From her blog entry, sounds like she had a pretty good international flight, which is great to hear. I hope mine is equally good.
Now just another two flights to go and she’ll be in the care of one of her friends, so I won’t have to worry anymore.
