An Adventure Out West - Part 1: The Flight

Peter graduated from Southern Utah University on May 2nd, and I used it as an excuse to go out west to see +K Turek , Dad, and of course +Jessica B  and Peter.  +Joanne Turek  originally planned on going but state PASS testing was scheduled for that time so she could not get off from work. This would be a solo trip.

The Weather
I knew weather was going to be a problem. Turned out it was, but not in the way I expected. The forecast for South Carolina was for heavy rain (3-4 inches!) and thunderstorms. This is a problem for Greenville Spartanburg Internation Airport (aka GSP) because there is no covered walk ways from long term parking to the terminal, and no transportation. (I was flying out of GSP because the fare was cheaper, and yes, I hate flying out of CLT that much!) I waited too long to reserve a parking space close to the terminal so I was stuck with the long term parking lot. On Wednesday morning (30 April), the day of my flight, it became more and more obvious that the weatherman blew his forecast for the Carolinas. But the same system was producing problems on the northeast coast. Early in the day I started seeing major delays for Philadelphia. This was a problem for me as the plane that was taking me from Chicago Midway airport (MDW) to Las Vegas (LAS) went from Vegas to Denver to Chicago to PHILADELPHIA back to Chicago back to Vegas. Because of low ceilings and visibility, flights going into Philadelphia were being held at departure airfields for over two hours. I kept hoping it would clear up before I left, but no such luck. (The same weather pattern was disrupting flights to all the major airports from Washington DC to Boston.)

The Flight

Southwest 737-700 at GSP

I left the office at about 2:30 for the drive to GSP.  The weather was cloudy with a couple of sprinkles in Charlotte but not much else. I got my bags checked and into the waiting area with no problems. My flight, which was coming from Houston Hobby, was right on time. I saw my bag go up the baggage conveyor into the airplane. So far, so good.

The flight took off on time, but even as I left GSP the next leg was showing a two hour delay on Southwest's web site. Not good. Flight to MDW was uneventful.

Flight from GSP to MDW

When I landed, I found out my next airplane had just barely left for its legs to Philadelphia and back. Now looking at 2 hours plus delay. This was on top of a scheduled 2 hour layover even if everything was running okay. So I was looking at 4-5 hours of waiting! The terminal was packed as every plane that went through the northeast US was running form 1 - 3 hours late (that is a lot of airplanes!) The one bright spot in all of this was I found the Midway USO. There was at least a comfortable place to crash out, with soft sofas, free food and drinks, and a place to charge my phone and tablet. There was a very friendly lady with a pronounced Polish accent manning the USO. She was supposed to close at 2100 but stayed open and extra half hour for us. Long story short, it was about 0020 Chicago time (3 hours late) before we left (last plane out of Midway that night.)

I landed in LAS about 0138 Pacific time.  I texted Kira to come get me and headed toward baggage claim. I got about halfway there and discovered my wallet was missing. I sprinted back to the plane and with a little help from the cleaning crew we found it. It had worked its way out of my pocket while I was trying to sleep during the flight. I went back and picked up my already waiting bag, headed out to passenger pickup to my already waiting daughter and we took off for Mike and Kelly's house. I finally got into bed Thursday morning almost exactly 24 hours after I got up on Wednesday morning.