Our airport fiasco

So , more about our crazy trip home! We get up on Saturday before the crack of dawn to pack and go to the little Jackson Hole airport. We were in a mad rush and even with sporadic nursing we made it to the airport an hour and a half before the flight was scheduled to take off. It was snowing heavily and foggy. I had a bad feeling that morning that flying would be iffy. Anyway, we get in line to get our boarding passes and hear the rumor floating down the line that something was up with our flight. After a few minutes it was announced that the flight had been cancelled. Not delayed...CANCELLED!

We proceed to juggle the children (we were with my extended family, 14 adults and 11 children!) and stand in line for two hours to get our flight rescheduled. My husband finally approached me with the verdict...We were scheduled to fly to Salt Lake City and spend the night. Then the next morning we would fly to Dallas and have a 4 HOUR lay-over and then fly to Atlanta! Ugg...didn't sound great with an infant and two active boys, but we were determined to get home. (Apparently not all of my family felt that way. 8 of the adults and half the kids stayed behind, even though they were told that they would be stuck in Jackson Hole until Wednesday!) So any way, we were booked for the Salt Lake City flight, but the plane was scheduled for 1:20. We thought, no big deal we will eat lunch, look at the gift shop, enjoy the snow for a few more hours, we were sure the time would fly by. It turns out that the flight was delayed due to the BLIZZARD that was coming through the town. We finally got on the airplane and then this huge wind storm came. We sat on the run way for a solid hour waiting for the wind to die down. We were in a tiny 20 passenger plane. I hate to fly, I was sweating bullets!

When we finally took off it was the roughest flight I have ever experienced. The plane was swooping back and forth like a pendulum and it would go forward and then drop so hard from turbulence that we would literally come off of our seats. At one point I broke down and started to tremble and cry. Meanwhile, my husband looked green like he was fighting the urge to vomit. Our sweet baby was content as usual with her little head on my shoulder. And my favorite of all responses were the boys'...they were hooting and screaming with glee. They later commented that the airplane ride was better than a roller coaster.

I have never been so glad to put my two feet on the ground as I was 45 minutes later when we were walking through the Salt Lake City airport! After 1 1/2 hours of haggling with the customer service rep for free accomodations, we headed for the hotel with vouchers for a free night stay and free meals for the next day. I will add that we had to wait 1 hour in front of the airport for the shuttle to take us to our hotel. Once we got there we realized that it was 10 pm (midnight on our normal time zone) and we had not had dinner. We ordered room service and went to bed. We all slept so well, even #3 slept 9 hours without making a peep!

The next morning we headed to the airport early. It was Sunday and the airport was a mad house! We received good news that we could get a direct flight to Atlanta without the lay-over in Dallas! I thought, "Yeah! We will get home and go to bed early!" On the flight I sat by the most interesting man. #3 was enamored with him, as she is with most men. (Scary, I know!) I am not lying when I describe this sweet character...he was a true cowboy. He had maybe 6 teeth in his entire mouth, a strong smell of dust and rawhide, a big black hat with elk teeth and other various trinkets dangling from the rope that he tied along the brim, and a handle bar mustache. He was a sweet man. But you can imagine how nervous and reluctant I was to sit by him knowing that I would be nursing #3 at least twice during our flight! It turned out to be no big deal. He was easy to talk to, so sweet and friendly, and he didn't even acknowledge the nursing! Any way, long story short, we arrived back in Atlanta before 5 pm but all 8 of our pieces of luggage were lost! We spent the next 3-4 hours looking through this long room full of lost luggage...and ofcourse 7 of the 8 pieces were black, the most common color for luggage! I found 7 of our lost suitcases and we tracked down the last piece as being on the wrong flight. We left very happy to have almost all of our things and at least have our children's car seats for our ride home! (Sidenote: I am most impressed! The airport already delivered that lost suitcase. They had it here by 5 pm on Monday!)

My husband took the boys and said to load up the luggage and he would meet me out front with our car. Thankfully it remained unharmed after a week of sitting in the not-so-safe airport parking lot. But as he pulled up, a monsoon-type rain storm came. We were both SOAKED to the bone! And then as we began to roll away he whispered, "We are almost out of gas...say a prayer." I have to admit, I had a bad feeling about this! But PRAISE THE LORD we made it on fumes to a gas station. It was now 8 pm and again we remembered that our children had not eaten since lunch! We pulled into McDonald's and rode home slowly, I was praying fervently all the way home. It was not until we pulled into the driveway safely that I could breathe deeply again and boy did I praise God for getting us there in one piece.

So that's my story of our 36 hour trip home from Jackson Hole. I wonder if we could have driven home in a similar amount of time! Anybody up for a family vacation with us? I can promise you a little "Griswald family fun" if you hang around us too long!