The Bad That Comes With The Good

Allan works in the airline industry. He loves his job and one of the perks to his job is that we can fly for free of charge- not free of stress. We fly standby which at times is a breeze and at times makes me want to scream my head off, cry, curse, and bury myself in a hole...today was one of the bad days.

It all started when my sister who was coming to relieve me of kid duty was running late ( for those of you who know Sara this should come as no surprise). I did have the go ahead to leave the three Powells at my house all alone until she could make it in, but due to an emotional meltdown of a certain one and three year old this could not happen. Needless to say I was late getting to the airport to get on the standby list which resulted in missing the first flight, the WIDE OPEN flight, that would get us to CA in time for dinner and a decent bedtime for Claire.

From that point on it is all a blur...we did get out of Dallas on a flight to Albuquerque where a freaked out gate agent screwed up so we missed another flight. Thankfully a top dog Southwest employee, Becky, had a saft spot in her heart (or maybe she was just sick of hearing Claire scream so loud that the entire terminal needed sound canceling earphones in order to think straight). She found us a flight to Las Vegas and even ushered us past everyone that was trying to get on the plane so that Allan and I could have seats together. Claire finally gave up the fight and slept for most of that flight. When we got to Vegas we were told that more than likely we would not be getting out until 9:30 because all the flights were oversold, but they would add us to the standby list anyway. As luck would have it Vegas trapped enough people so that they missed their flight and we got on a flight that would FINALLY get us to California. The cherry on top of the almost nine hours of travel was that they made me gate check my carryon (which had my video camera, digital camera, all of Claire's in flight entertainment, and her extra clothes) in Dallas because all the overhead bins were full. When we arrived in CA that bag was missing AND because we were nonreving (flying for free) there is no compensation offered for such a mishap. I was at my freaking breaking point.

Claire ate five lollipops, a can of crunchies, some raisins (which some sweet gentleman informed me was worse for her teeth than candy- AAARGH), dried fruit, and a little bit of a quesadilla. She stayed up until 10 (that is midnight TX time). I have to say that she was a trooper for the most part, just a handful of meltdowns.

I am thankful that we survived and are finally in California. The thought of doing all of this again on Sunday to get home makes me want to puke. I also should add that in the last five years of standby travel I have only had three other experiences even close to this and before Claire was around we traveled almost every weekend. I am thankful for free flights.

I am off to crash into a night coma for the next few hours. Allan has to get up for golf EARLY in the morning but he is a little more emotionally stable than me at the moment and nowhere near as exhausted so he will be fine.

***This just in*** My lost bag has arrived and they are sending it to my in laws house first thing in the morning!!! Thank you JESUS!!!