The last shall be first

My mom asked about the connecting flight we missed (which I mentioned in my last post) and although that story’s from the end of our trip, and I haven’t said much yet about the first parts of the trip, I guess I can go ahead and answer her question.

The connecting flight we missed was on our trip back home. Air Traffic Control wouldn’t let our first plane leave because it was deemed too heavy to take off in the DC heat on the short Reagan Airport runway. The airline had underestimated the weight (it was a packed flight.) By the time this was determined, the plane had already left the gate, so the solution was that the plane had to sit on the tarmac with its engine going until it had burned off enough fuel to lighten it! This took quite a while, and we arrived in Minneapolis about 10 minutes after our connecting flight left. When we went to talk to the agent helping people who’d missed connections, it turned out the airline had already re-booked us for another flight — at 9:35 the next morning. I don’t think so! When she saw our bedraggled family, the agent got right on the phone and got us switched to a flight later that afternoon (I heard her say to the person on the other end of the line “they have four little ones.”) Our original flight was to leave at 2:45 and instead we got on the 5:20 PM flight. Then they had to try to get us so that at least one parent was seated with each of our two littlest ones — in the end, the best they could do was three sets of two seats, with none of the seat pairs next to each other — but at least Dean could sit next to Henry, and I sat with Rose. Mabel and Isaac sat next to a woman from Scotland and played Mad Libs with her. She told us afterward that she’d really enjoyed having them for travel companions.

Before this, we’d had an extra two hours or so to kill — which turned out not to be too long when you’re trying to get diapers changed and everyone fed and give the kids a chance to run around a little bit. The airline also gave us each a $10 certificate, good for that day only, that would be accepted by any airport food vendor — but they accidentally shorted us one, and when I sent Dean to collect the missing certificate, they gave us two to make up for the mistake. So we had $70 to spend on food in two hours. At first Dean was for some reason wanting to be thrifty with the airline’s money and was saying he didn’t see the need to spend all of it — but I didn’t think it would be hard to spend that much feeding six people airport food. It was pretty fun, too — like spending Monopoly money. The kids wanted Subway sandwiches, and Dean and I ate at a taco place, and we spent the rest on Odwalla smoothies, cookies, and pain-au-chocolats at a French bakery (which were decent but not great.) Since it would have been a rush to catch our connecting flight even if our first flight had been on time, in a way it was actually an improvement to have the break in between flights — other than that it did make for an even longer travel day.

So there’s that story. By the way, lying down yesterday did lessen my cold symptoms (although I’m still coughing quite a bit,) and I made pajamas for Isaac today, which was definitely chore sewing (I wanted him to have the PJs to wear to Clear Creek camp next week, and he’s leaving early Monday morning,) and yet also fun because the sewing went smoothly and he was happy with the result. Pictures of the pajamas — and maybe even some of the many photos from our trip — will be forthcoming.

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