So. Very. Tired.
Flying from San Diego to Mobile yesterday, we had one stop. Houston. So did a massive thunderstorm. The end result was a 2-hour delay on the tarmac before we could drive up to the gate. This caused us to miss our connection to Mobile.
Not to worry, there were three other flights going to the same place. The first two canceled after waiting a few hours and the last one was delayed and delayed and delayed. At midnight, they canceled it. We spent 2 hours on the tarmac and 9 hours in IAH proper only to have to get a hotel at midnight. Make that 1 AM because there were way more people looking for taxis than taxis running. There were also more people looking for hotel rooms than decent hotel rooms to rent.
We ended up at a hotel many miles away where the clerk sat behind bulletproof glass.
We finally got into Mobile today. It's beautiful. And we're tired. Did I mention that?
Going to nap now. Wake me when it's tomorrow. Hope your day is going well.
Wow. If they’d just dumped those flights to start with, you could have driven to Mobile is less than the 9 hours you sat there.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I checked out the drive time from IAH MOB. 7 hours. It would have been a grind, but we would have reached the rental car desk at MOB before it closed and gotten to see the Gulf Coast at the same time!
ReplyDeleteSomeday I’ll tell you the story of when I flew back to Ohio for my dad’s memorial. Similar situation on flights and weather, but hunkering down and waiting wasn’t an option, so the grind of a drive it was. To summarize the ending, even though I was there in second day t-shirt and blue jeans, I made it.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can certainly sympathise with you on this. Pretty much every flight out of our local airport is like that. To the point where, when I had to go to East Chicago to meet with my research sponsor on a regular basis for the last several years, I always drove instead of trying to fly. It is nominally a 1 hr 40 minute flight from here to Chicago, and a 9 hour drive to East Chicago. But when you factor in having to come in an hour early to clear Security, the better-than-50% chance that the flight will be either delayed several hours or cancelled entirely (and with only two flights, a cancellation means anywhere from 8 to 36 hours delay), and the inevitable traffic jam between O'Haire and East Chicago that takes about 4 hours to get through, on average it turns out to be at least as fast (and a lot less stressful) to just drive down and circle completely around Chicago.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to need to get to Salt Lake City for a conference next February, and I'm thinking that my best bet is just to take the 6 hours to drive to Minneapolis and take a direct flight from there, rather than dorking around with flying from our local airport to Chicago to catch a connection to Salt Lake.
Man, that's tough, Tim. San Diego isn't a hub, but we have no problems getting flights and the weather is, well, San Diegan.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with driving is that you'd have to get your luggage. IAH was a madhouse of disgruntled people dealing with an overtaxed UA customer support team. I'd imagine that you could have added an hour or so to the time just waiting for our gear.
Once you got the gear, you were driving in a massive thunderstorm, going with the flow of the storm, extending its duration over you. The Uber driver the next morning told us that some place north of Houston got 12" of rain and the kids ended up staying at school overnight with their teachers because no one could get in or out. Crazy!