Home on the Mountain

I made it home! It was a long day. 14 hours of travel just to get to my jeep. Plus, I had to put up with this view as we flew into town:

I wrote the rest of the blog while flying in. Here it is...




My day started this morning at 4:55 a.m. so that I could make my 6:50 a.m. flight to Chicago and then SFO. Flying through Denver would have cost $350 more, so I figured leaving a bit early and arriving a bit later was probably okay.

Here is a picture of the gate (from my seat) before we took off. Oh yeah, it was still 30 below.



We took off almost on time, and it seemed like all was well until the pilot informed us that the flaps wouldn’t go up. You can’t fly very fast that way, so we had to go back to Winnipeg. Shortly after arriving, our flight was cancelled. Time to scramble.

First I booked a backup through Denver by calling United. New arrival time would be about 5:20 p.m. 4.5 hours later than I had hoped, but at least it was not too late.

Under Rule 240, United was obligated to rebook us on other airlines. They managed to get me on a flight to Calgary on Air Canada, with an expected arrival time in SFO of 3:12 p.m. – about 2.5 hours later than I had hoped, but better than 4.5 hours.

Here is a picture of the Calgary sprawl. Lots of McMansions down there. And the temperature was about 32F. Very nice!



For some reason Air Canada couldn’t issue me a boarding pass (back on a United Express/Air Canada codeshare flight out of Calgary) for me to go all the way to San Francisco, so I had to go to the ticket counter. Fortunately, the line was short, but unfortunately, the agent couldn’t find my ticket number (even though I had given her the United documentation). She asked “you don’t want to use your Chicago-SFO ticket?” Kind of confusing for me, since I was in Calgary and had asked for my Calgary-SFO boarding pass. Eventually, she figured it out and I re-checked myself in through U.S. Customs.

Arriving at the gate, the flight was delayed due to a late arriving aircraft. Okay, fine, just 15 minutes. Then the pilots did their walk-around and found a damaged tire. Here’s a picture of the pilot making his bad-tire discovery.



They told us they didn’t think they would be able to find a spare tire very quickly and they may have to cancel the flight. Time to scramble again.

I booked another backup through Denver, this time arriving at 7:30 p.m. Not good, but better than waiting for the next flight to SFO from Calgary at 7:15 p.m. and arriving at 9:30 p.m.

And then they found a spare wheel. Whew! I think it was in the trunk, actually. So, we are now flying to SFO and should arrive around 4:30 p.m. 3.25 hours late. I’m always amazed how many mountains there are in Montana and Idaho. Here’s a look:



Well, that’s the story. It could have been worse. Still, no time for a workout in the daylight. I guess I’ll probably take a rest day. Tomorrow will be a new, and hopefully, productive day.