I Was Famous Once, In Idaho

Leaving Boise wasn't as easy as getting there.  Though no significant weather was happening where we were, major snow storms were affecting the east.  We got a call the day before, telling us our flights had been cancelled.  No "here's your resceduled itenerary," or "sorry about that."  Just, "your flights are cancelled.  Goodbye."

We freaked a little at first.  Originally, we were supposed to fly from Boise to Chicago at 6 a.m. Mountain Time, and then from Chicago to Jacksonville, FL, arriving at 4:30 our time.  THEN, we had rented a car, which we were going to drive to Tallahassee, get to the fire station to pick up our van around 9 p.m., go to the rental place to drop off the rental car, go to my parent's house to pick up our dog, and finally get home around 10:30.  We didn't try to fly in to Tallahassee because our airport is pretty po-dunk and the cost was about $600 more.  The thought of having all those delicately balanced plans thrown out in the wash made my head spin.

We hit the airport a day early to talk to a real person and get some flights.  The United rep was extremely helpful (much more helpful than automated phone calls) and practically bent over backwards to get us home.  Chicago was completely closed down and many other airports were suffering terrible delays.  At first, the only flights to Jacksonville were going to get us there at 10:30 p.m.--way too late to then rent a car and drive home and do all the other things on our schedule.  I asked if she could get us to Tallahassee instead.  After several minutes of conferring with the Delta people at another counter, she came back with fantastic news:  We can do it!

Because of this snow storm we got to:

• fly directly to Tallahassee for no extra charge
• not have to rent a car and drive (yuck) after a full day of flying
• get up late, have breakfast with Grandma Joan at the country club and mosey on over to the airport by 10:30

We did have to beg my dad to come and pick us up at the airport at 11 p.m. and please, please bring us our dog, too, while you're at it?  And we did have to suffer through a bit of a delay in Atlanta because the plane coming in was frozen.  (We had to promise not to use the toilets on the plane because of the frozen pipes!)  So, by the time we got to hit the sack in our own beds, it was 1 a.m.  (Oh, and did I mention my dad did bring our dog and she ran away at the fire station while we were trading vehicles? Nice.  Dumb dog. We got her back.  Don't worry.)

Buuuuuuuttttt... as we were getting ready to leave the Boise airport, we were caught by a reporter who interviewed me about the weather delays.  Seth and the girls are in the background, and if you watch carefully, you can see Seth about to walk like an Egyptian as we gather our bags.  Hee hee!  It was difficult during the interview to hold back my enthusiasm over our changed flights, considering thousands of others were suffering because of the storm and watching me talk about it on the evening news.  I managed, though,  I said "complicated" way too much in an effort to tone down my story. 

Now you know the real story.

It's complicated.