Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - Bad Day at the Airport

Got up bright and early for a travel day to DC. Made sure the animals were all set, dropped off all three dogs (our 2 and our client's, whom we've been looking after) at the vet's for boarding (stunned at the prospect they wanted to charge extra just to open a can of dog food, considering it I already had to pay through the nose to get them vaccinated for some rare but contagious influenza that is apparently out here in Colorado, but few other places), then ran up to Colorado Springs. Stopped for breakfast at IHOP, then headed to the Meineke. We had made arrangements to have them drive us to the airport, keep the truck to perform a brake job, transmission service and other overdue maintenance, then pick us up again on Friday when we returned. Made it to the airport with about an hour to spare, only to discover the plane was delayed for 30 minutes... Then an hour... Then two hours... It finally arrived, but moments later we learned the air conditioning had gone out on the plane in flight, and we needed to wait another 15 minutes to see if repairs could be made. After 15 minutes of analysis, the plane was taken out of service, leaving us stranded. I quickly got on the phone to American and rebooked for the next flight out, and the next connection to DC from DFW. The best we could get was a 1:10 am arrival, we had no choice, grateful that the appointment with our client wasn't until 3:00 pm! After several more hours of waiting, we flew out to DFW. Upon arrival, we learned that our connecting flight was going to be 45 minutes late, making our landing in DC about 1:30 am. Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we arrived, even though our body clocks were at 11:30 pm, that's still way past our bedtime. It was apparently too late for an airport shuttle to the hotel, so we had to grab a cab for the 5 minute trip. Crashed into bed, but couldn't sleep for more than an hour, had to wind down from all the activity!