the merry meanders begin

Here’s a honeymoon story for ya, free of charge:

TRAVEL DAY: Thursday, December 30.

GOAL: Grand Rapids Int’l Airport -> O’Hare Int’l Airport -> Knoxville McGhee Tyson Airport -> Gatlinburg, TN -> Happily Ever After Cabin high in the Smoky Mountains.

Sounds fairly simple, right? That was the plan. But this is kind of how it played out.

We woke up early, so we thought we’d head on in to the airport in GR to get a cup of coffee and wait for our flight. As we walk in, our flight is “on time”, according to the screen. As we punch in our information at the kiosk, the flight canceled and our information was denied. The United Airlines workers saw us as an inconvenience, and let us know. Obviously, it was our fault and our responsibility to see that we make our connection to Knoxville. They found a flight headed for Chicago (that was originally meant for Madison, but was going to fly to Chicago instead… and at the same time our original flight was supposed to leave. Still not sure how they figured that one) and issued us not boarding passes, but security passes to get up to the gate. At the gate, they said, the attendants would determine who they were able to fit on the plane. We were, fortunately, among the twenty that were able to board.

Arriving in Chicago around the time we would have initially, Kev and I headed over to find our information for the flight to Knoxville. The customer service desk was, of course, unmanned. Kevin started punching in our information at the kiosk, which was, of course, denied. I picked up the courtesy phone, talked to a service rep, referred to Kevin as my husband for the first time to a complete stranger, and got the gate for the Knoxville flight. So, we maneuvered around the hundreds of people that were occupying the United Airlines terminal to talk to a lady at another desk to (hopefully!) get a boarding pass. Once we gave her our information, she informed us that the flight for which we were hoping… didn’t exist. She audibly and irritably sighed (again, because we were an inconvenience), but was able to put us on a flight leaving for Knoxville only ten minutes after our “original flight” was supposed to leave.

After breathing a sigh of overwhelming relief, muttering, “This would only happen to us,” we walked to Chili’s for lunch. After lunch, we walked back to the gate, sat among hundreds of dissatisfied UA customers, fellow travelers and one shrieking teenage girl for another two hours as flight after flight was delayed.

In all, Kevin and I counted ourselves lucky that our travels went as well as it did. We arrived safely, our luggage arrived safely (probably hours before we did), and we drove out of the airport in a new Kia Soul, headed for Gatlinburg and our cabin, “Happily Ever After.”