Exercising my travel deamons

Well after more than 80,000 miles of travel this year I finally experienced my worst travel day of the year during my trip to Boston this week.

It all started with an early flight at 8am out of San Francisco airport. In order to get to my plane on time I had to leave our house at 6am. Things started going wrong when my flight was delayed by more than two hours taking off.

We finally got in the air and things were going along fine. We had our drink service, the movie was on and people were generally settled in at 30,000 ft.

Suddenly there was a pretty strong shudder and thump in the plane. As I looked around and out the window we were starting to turn to the left and lose altitude! Shortly after that the audio and lights went out. Now I was starting to get a little worried. Finally after a few more minutes the pilot came on to tell us that we had lost oil pressure in one of our engines and that we were diverting to Salt Lake City. When we landed all of the emergency vehicles were out and ready for us.

Thinking quickly I actually called the airline to get myself re-booked on some alternate flights. There were no direct flights available however I actually had a new flight through Denver before we even reached the gate! It was fortuitous since they only let the most elite fliers off the plane.

I caught my flight to Denver but unfortunately that flight was an hour delayed too! This was starting to look like the travel day that would never end, two delayed flights and an emergency landing. But there is more...

When I finally got to Boston around 11 (14 hours after I left) my path to the hotel was blocked because our exit off of the highway was closed due to construction. Now we had to go around a long way back to the hotel and there was surprisingly a lot of traffic. Suddenly the car in front of us hit the brakes and although my cab tried we hit the car. Now I was really starting to think this was the day that would never end.

We pulled over and they exchanged insurance info and I was finally able to get to the hotel.

What a crazy day! I hope I have exercised my travel demons for some time!