OK, Here is what I have gone through...
I drove to the Denver airport (DIA). The parking stucture only had space on the top (uncovered) level. I then had to stand in a huge line to check a bag. Yes, I had liquids in bottles more than 3 ounces. I haven't travelled in a while, and this trip came up kind of fast at a busy time of year.
I flew to Des Moines with my boss to assess how F-ed up their Software Configuration Management system is (I am not going to explain what SCM is). We already knew is was bad, but we wanted to see how difficult it would be to get it up to our standards (which we don't even meet, but that is why I am so damn busy).
The people I talked to were nice, but there was this feeling of paranoia in their undertones. Their whole software development organization is being reorganized. Change can be scary, I guess.
So our meetings went .... well
But during all this, the weather in Denver went to shit. I was only to stay In Des Moines for one night. My boss was staying an extra day, so he was going to take me to the airport. I had been keeping track of flights to Denver. My flight was still going, so I started getting ready to go. I checked one last time before shutting down the laptop... CANCELLED!!!!
I went through Expedia (our corporate travel crook) to get my flight rebooked. The only thing they could get me was the next day (Thursday) to Milwaukee, then from there to Denver. So then I called the hotel to let them know I would be staying another night. She said that since my first resevation was through Expedia I could get them to extend me on their rate, but if I wanted I could just do a new booking for $99. I called Expedia, just to stay within the rules of work travel. After taking a while to get through they said they could do it at the same rate of $210. Yes, that's right $210. I told them "nevermind". Can you believe that shit?!
My new flight was to leave about an hour before Bob's flight, so he was going to drop me off and take the rental car in. Again we checked right before leaving for the airport, and again my second leg of my flight was cancelled. Bob's flight was still on, but then it was cancelled just a few minutes later. Now I had to decide whether to take the flight to Milwaukee and hope for a different flight.
I decided to get to the airport and deal with it. Bob was on the phone trying to reschedule his. He got a really nice lady that was trying just about anything possible to get him home by the next day. He dropped me off at my airline check in area. I went over options with the ladies at the counter about whether being in Milwaukee was better than maybe being in Chicago or maybe Atlanta. I held off on checking in.
I called Bob to check on his luck. I went straight to voice mail. I got on the phone with Expedia (what a worthless bunch of idiots). I was having a hard time hearing this last one so I had my head stuck in this little barrier between a wall and the outside window. Then I got a tap on my shoulder. It was Bob.
He said we're screwed. He said the next flight he could get into Denver was for the 25th. That didn't work for either of us. He said let's go rent an SUV and drive it. "OK!" Fifteen minutes later we were on the road. We tried to get a large SUV, but all they had was a KIA. I don't remember the model. It was ok.
We headed west on I-80 in Iowa and were making pretty good time. Once we passed the Nebraska border the variable highway signs were saying that I-80 was closed about where we would be connecting to I-76, unfortunately not quite to I-76. When we got to within an hour of the closure we hit a Holiday Inn. It's nice to be able to surf the web from my phone on the road.
The news later that night made it sound like I-80 was now open. We decided to hit the highway at 5 a.m. and pass on the free breakfast. After a screw up with my room alarm clock being set to the wrong time I ended up awake and ready about 45 minutes before Bob. Just my luck.
We got rolling in the dark and cold. An hour down the road and we saw nothing. No snow at all. Why was it closed? We continued on and got into a little snow on the edges of the road. I kept thinking "This is it?", but then all of a sudden the roads started showing more signs of snow and ice. Then there was not, one, not two, not three, but FOUR semi trucks in the median and the shoulders of the road. Two of the trucks were over turned. Some serious ice must have caused this. I would bet that once they cleared the wreckage from the highway and laid down some sand they opened it back up.
We made it to I-76 and started the southwestern trek through Colorado. Once we were a few miles into Colorado it was clear that things were just going to get worse. We saw dozens and dozens of cars and trucks buried in the snow, some flipped over, others just stuck. The roads were very hard snow packed. Traffic was not too bad. I think we beat the rush.
We came upon one panel truck that must have just crashed. It was on its side and there were people there climbing on the vehicle trying to help the driver out. I didn't see anyone on a phone so I called 911. They dispatched rescue vehicles, and we just kept on rolling.
Another truck we saw in the median had just spun out. Steam was pouring out from under the hood. So we knew that even though we were getting through this, we had better be careful. We continued on.
About 10:30 a.m. as we got to our connection to E-470 we stopped to gas up the car before returning the rental. This was our first time getting off the highway in the snow. The gas station was a mess. A semi was stuck in the driveway. A woman in a 2 wheel drive pickup was tring to get around the semi, and was just spinning. We got around the building and came in through another entrance. It felt like we were cutting in line, but I was not going to feel guilty about it. Ten the lady that works there informed us that the only fuel they had left was premium and that was close to running out.
Gassed up, and back on the road we headed toward the airport. We dropped off the car and got on the bus to take us to the terminal. ABout a third of the people getting on the bus we just going to the parking structure. We weren't the only ones that drove in. Flights were supposed to start taking off in the next hour or so.
I got to my car and this is what I saw
It took me about 10 minutes to dig out enough snow from behind the tires to pull it out. Driving out of DIA was kind of surreal. I was the only car driving out of their. It felt like I was in a zombie movie.
I drove to the Denver airport (DIA). The parking stucture only had space on the top (uncovered) level. I then had to stand in a huge line to check a bag. Yes, I had liquids in bottles more than 3 ounces. I haven't travelled in a while, and this trip came up kind of fast at a busy time of year.
I flew to Des Moines with my boss to assess how F-ed up their Software Configuration Management system is (I am not going to explain what SCM is). We already knew is was bad, but we wanted to see how difficult it would be to get it up to our standards (which we don't even meet, but that is why I am so damn busy).
The people I talked to were nice, but there was this feeling of paranoia in their undertones. Their whole software development organization is being reorganized. Change can be scary, I guess.
So our meetings went .... well
But during all this, the weather in Denver went to shit. I was only to stay In Des Moines for one night. My boss was staying an extra day, so he was going to take me to the airport. I had been keeping track of flights to Denver. My flight was still going, so I started getting ready to go. I checked one last time before shutting down the laptop... CANCELLED!!!!
I went through Expedia (our corporate travel crook) to get my flight rebooked. The only thing they could get me was the next day (Thursday) to Milwaukee, then from there to Denver. So then I called the hotel to let them know I would be staying another night. She said that since my first resevation was through Expedia I could get them to extend me on their rate, but if I wanted I could just do a new booking for $99. I called Expedia, just to stay within the rules of work travel. After taking a while to get through they said they could do it at the same rate of $210. Yes, that's right $210. I told them "nevermind". Can you believe that shit?!
My new flight was to leave about an hour before Bob's flight, so he was going to drop me off and take the rental car in. Again we checked right before leaving for the airport, and again my second leg of my flight was cancelled. Bob's flight was still on, but then it was cancelled just a few minutes later. Now I had to decide whether to take the flight to Milwaukee and hope for a different flight.
I decided to get to the airport and deal with it. Bob was on the phone trying to reschedule his. He got a really nice lady that was trying just about anything possible to get him home by the next day. He dropped me off at my airline check in area. I went over options with the ladies at the counter about whether being in Milwaukee was better than maybe being in Chicago or maybe Atlanta. I held off on checking in.
I called Bob to check on his luck. I went straight to voice mail. I got on the phone with Expedia (what a worthless bunch of idiots). I was having a hard time hearing this last one so I had my head stuck in this little barrier between a wall and the outside window. Then I got a tap on my shoulder. It was Bob.
He said we're screwed. He said the next flight he could get into Denver was for the 25th. That didn't work for either of us. He said let's go rent an SUV and drive it. "OK!" Fifteen minutes later we were on the road. We tried to get a large SUV, but all they had was a KIA. I don't remember the model. It was ok.
We headed west on I-80 in Iowa and were making pretty good time. Once we passed the Nebraska border the variable highway signs were saying that I-80 was closed about where we would be connecting to I-76, unfortunately not quite to I-76. When we got to within an hour of the closure we hit a Holiday Inn. It's nice to be able to surf the web from my phone on the road.
The news later that night made it sound like I-80 was now open. We decided to hit the highway at 5 a.m. and pass on the free breakfast. After a screw up with my room alarm clock being set to the wrong time I ended up awake and ready about 45 minutes before Bob. Just my luck.
We got rolling in the dark and cold. An hour down the road and we saw nothing. No snow at all. Why was it closed? We continued on and got into a little snow on the edges of the road. I kept thinking "This is it?", but then all of a sudden the roads started showing more signs of snow and ice. Then there was not, one, not two, not three, but FOUR semi trucks in the median and the shoulders of the road. Two of the trucks were over turned. Some serious ice must have caused this. I would bet that once they cleared the wreckage from the highway and laid down some sand they opened it back up.
We made it to I-76 and started the southwestern trek through Colorado. Once we were a few miles into Colorado it was clear that things were just going to get worse. We saw dozens and dozens of cars and trucks buried in the snow, some flipped over, others just stuck. The roads were very hard snow packed. Traffic was not too bad. I think we beat the rush.
We came upon one panel truck that must have just crashed. It was on its side and there were people there climbing on the vehicle trying to help the driver out. I didn't see anyone on a phone so I called 911. They dispatched rescue vehicles, and we just kept on rolling.
Another truck we saw in the median had just spun out. Steam was pouring out from under the hood. So we knew that even though we were getting through this, we had better be careful. We continued on.
About 10:30 a.m. as we got to our connection to E-470 we stopped to gas up the car before returning the rental. This was our first time getting off the highway in the snow. The gas station was a mess. A semi was stuck in the driveway. A woman in a 2 wheel drive pickup was tring to get around the semi, and was just spinning. We got around the building and came in through another entrance. It felt like we were cutting in line, but I was not going to feel guilty about it. Ten the lady that works there informed us that the only fuel they had left was premium and that was close to running out.
Gassed up, and back on the road we headed toward the airport. We dropped off the car and got on the bus to take us to the terminal. ABout a third of the people getting on the bus we just going to the parking structure. We weren't the only ones that drove in. Flights were supposed to start taking off in the next hour or so.
I got to my car and this is what I saw
It took me about 10 minutes to dig out enough snow from behind the tires to pull it out. Driving out of DIA was kind of surreal. I was the only car driving out of their. It felt like I was in a zombie movie.
It took me about 2 hours to get home. I immediately finished wrapping gifts, but got word from my kids that my ex wouldn't be bring them over right away. Some choice words entered my mind, but I held my tongue. I called my brother and MS to let them know I was home. I took a shower and started packing for driving to Michigan.
The kids arrived as well as MS and her son. We exchanged gifts and hung out for a bit before my brother pulled up. He and I loaded my car. MS took the boys back to my ex's house since my car no longer had room for them. Mike and I got on the road, but had to pick up some food for the road and get gas. We had a real problem finding gas in town. I guess the blizzard cause a gas shortage. We found one gas station with only half of it's pumps open. We were in line for about 30 minutes waiting for our turn. Then off we went... at 5:30 p.m.
Believe it or not I drove the first stretch. We decided right then to try and drive straight through. We traded off every few hours. We finally had to stop in Illinois at about 5 a.m., but we just pulled into a rest stop and slept in the car for about 2 hours. Then we found a shitty little greasy spoon for breakfast. It was pretty bad and we had to wait 45 minutes for our food.
We finally arrived at mom's apartment. Our drive time was 19 hours.
Now some time to relax
4 comments:
holy moly. that's all just hideous.
glad you made it all in one piece.
Oh my goodness! Thank God you made it home safely.
Amazingly, we haven't gotten a big snowfall yet... this is the first green Christmas that I've spent in Ottawa. Still nice though.
I'm glad you're safe.
Merry Christmas; wishing you all the best for the New Year :)
OMG...you had your own Planes, Trains and Automobiles story. I guess it just goes to show you persistence pays off. Hope you had a great holiday anyway. At least you had a white one.
Um, I am in Des Moines in March...wanna go?
xoxo!
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