Trip out West - The Return and Epilogue

Day 27; Wednesday, July 25th
Returning to Albany, NY

Pam swung by in her van and picked us up at around 9:30am.  After Diana dropped her car off at another friend’s house, we all rode up to the Portland Airport.

Checking the bags took longer and was more complicated than expected (you went through the normal line first, then after getting them tagged, you went through another line to drop them off at the x-ray machine – weird).

We were flying back with Southwest – an airline that I thought I’d flown with before, but apparently had not.  We were all confused with the “C” seating rather than the usual seat numbers on our boarding passes.  We quickly learned that there were three seating groups: A, B and C.  A’s boarded first, taking whatever seats they liked.  B’s followed and C’s got whatever was left over.  To get the coveted “A” seating, you had to log onto the website the day before and choose your seating group.  As we hadn’t done this, we were stuck at the end.

Though this part had been explained, nobody had mentioned the three lines.  A’s, B’s and C’s all line up at the same time at the gate – just in their own sections.  As we didn’t know this, we waited for the B’s to board and then we started to wander in after them only to find – at this late juncture – that all the patient C’s were already lined up in their own little queue.  Needless to say, we were some of the last people on the plane and had to therefore split up. 

Diana wasn’t overly thrilled about being separated from Laura, but they managed to get seats relatively close to each other, which was nice.

This was to be a “continuous flight” to Albany; not a not-stop flight.  It meant we’d get to Albany on the same plane, but there’d be several stops.  We’d be told when purchasing the tickets that there’d be a brief stop in Las Vegas, but we hadn’t been informed of the Oakland California stop. *sigh*  I just wanted to get home.

The stop in Oakland was rather lengthy and so those staying on the plane (there was only 15 or so people continuing on) were allowed to get off and get some “real food” within the airport (they don’t serve meals on domestic flights anymore – even trans-continental ones!)

We all disembarked and I picked up the one or two things I wanted and then I returned to the plane as I was only going to read and I can do that anywhere. 

After a while the next batch of passengers started getting on and Diana, Laura and Rick hadn’t returned yet.  Finally Diana showed up, looking a little concerned.  “They’re boarding the plane early because there’s a flight window that’s opened up, but Rick and Laura went further down the terminal looking for more restaurants, they don’t know we’re boarding!”

This was slightly disconcerting.  Diana went back out to tell someone that her brother and daughter didn’t know about the earlier departure and asked if they could be paged.  She then returned to the plane and sat down, since most of the passengers were on already.  Every passing moment brought more nervousness.

The pilot came over the PA, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been told that if we can be on the runway in nine minutes, we could be underway to Vegas, if not, there’ll be another 45 minute wait.

I think Diana was starting to get desperate.  Everyone had boarded by now.  Would the plane wait and force people to miss connections or would it take off without the late-comers?  What would Diana do?

A couple minutes later, a stewardess walked by and said casually to us, “Sorry, we’re going to have to leave without them.”

What?  I’m sure Diana was in a state of absolute panic.  We both sat in shock for about five seconds, then Rick and Laura came huffing and puffing onto the plane.  The stewardess had known they were coming all along!

“I’m going to kill her!” I laughed with relief, too stunned to be angry.  The people around who knew the situation laughed too.  In passing, Laura had spotted a departure board and noticed our flight time had been bumped up – they’d dashed back as quickly as they could.  We made our window and took of for Vegas.

Fortunately that was the only excitement for the rest of the flight.  The layover in Las Vegas was a whole 25 minutes – just long enough for the Oakland passengers to disembark and the Albany group to get on.  I tried to doze on the long flight, but it was no use.  It’s impossible to sleep on a plane.  We landed in Albany at around 1:00AM.  We had called Eugene ahead of time to see if he was still interested in picking us up – we were more than willing to take a taxi at that absurd hour of the day, but he assured us he’d be there and he was.

We packed down his little Prius so heavy that the wheel wells were practically scraping the tires, but we made it home just fine.

I was insane enough to go to work that day (a Thursday).  I felt duty-bound because some things had happened at work while we were away that required my attention as soon as I was able to and our boss was going to be out that Friday and all the next week.  So, after four hours sleep, I went in for eight hours.  I don’t regret doing that per say, but it did make for a hectic day.

Rick was smart and didn’t follow my example.  He stayed home for the remainder of the week and didn’t go in again till the following Tuesday.  He spent the time hanging out with his sister and niece and showing them around the area.  Ironically, Diana had spent part of her childhood in the area (just miles from our place) and so she had a ball reliving childhood memories and visiting houses she’d lived at when she was younger.

The weekend after our return we all took a day-trip down to New York City – a place that Laura had not been to before.  My father gladly took on tour-guide duty as he works in the City and had also lived there for a time as a child. We didn’t get to see a lot of the things originally on the itinerary due to time constraints and just the wide distance that would have needed to be covered to take in all the sights, but we were able to hit the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and China Town.  It made for a very long day, but we all had a ball.

Two weeks after their arrival, Diana and Laura headed back to Portland.  They got home safe and sound. They also got free tickets to come back next year by volunteering to take a later flight.