Getting To Our Destination On Our GA Vacation

(photo credit: www.thefineyounggentleman.com)

 

It's been about a month since we got back from our vacation in Atlanta. I know, I know, I said I'd have a recap by the end of the first week of June. I enjoy doing vacation recaps, but they're sometimes so daunting to write because there's a lot to write about. I also have a very bad habit of thinking something will take me a lot longer to do than it actually does. Does that make sense? Anyway, here is part 1 of the long-awaited vacation recap.

We did a lot of activities on this trip. Lots of fun and new experiences this time around. Getting to Atlanta in the first place ended up to be an adventure in itself. Our flight from Palm Springs was supposed to leave at 7:00 AM, but it was delayed an hour. The storms and tornadoes were the culprit. Flights were delayed one day, and it carried into the following day, according to the flight attendants. Anyway, we left Palm Springs at 8:00 AM and landed in Dallas with only five minutes to make our connecting flight. Needless to say, we missed that flight.

We tried like the dickens to make it though. Most of the time, the only reason I ask for a wheelchair at the airports is to make getting to our connecting flights easier. I'm glad I did this trip. We had a wheelchair waiting in Dallas, however the man who was pushing me stopped just outside the boarding doors and told us to wait a minute. This was after telling him we had to hurry to make our connection. The guy went somewhere else (I assume to get another wheelchair passenger up the ramp). I growled under my breath and said through gritted teeth “We don't have a minute, we need to move now”. Well, my husband didn't wait. He grabbed the wheelchair and sprinted us through the airport, onto the tram thing, and dashed us to our gate. We missed it by about 5 minutes. Fun.

We asked the people at the counter what we needed to do. We had two options. We could wait in Dallas for a an hour and a half for the next flight to Atlanta, or we could fly to New York and then down to Atlanta. I believe that option was guaranteed, at least the flight to New York. Ugh. Was there any question? We chose to stay in Dallas. They put us on stand-by for another flight, told us where to go, and sent us on our way. We got the next gate and waited. And waited. And waited. The flight started to board and we saw the list for stand-by people. It was really long, and we were about 6 people down the list. We didn't make that flight. So, onto to next. Missed that one too. Finally the people behind the desk found us a flight and made sure we got on it. I'm not sure what made them make sure we got on, but I'm thankful they did. We finally got on the plane, and got to Atlanta around 9:30 PM. Long day.

The flights to Atlanta were peaceful, minus the five and a half hours in Dallas. The first flight back from Atlanta was also peaceful. The flight from Dallas to Palm Springs? Well, it was interesting. We were one of the first to board the plane (one of the nice perks of using a wheelchair at the airport). Another pre-boarder was a young woman with a very very young baby. Looked to be about 3 or 4 months old. She sat across the aisle from us.

As the plane filled up, two people sat behind us. With dog carriers. I looked at my husband and said, “This could be a very interesting flight”. What made it more “interesting” was the flight attendant. She just gushed and gushed over the two dogs. She said something about “liking puppies just fine, but not babies on a plane”. What? Did she really just say that? I don’t remember her exact words, but I was so mad.

What was the end result? The baby did better than the dogs. The dogs weren't bad, but they were more vocal than the baby. Yes, the baby cried in the beginning, for about 5 minutes. And then fell asleep. The dogs barked on and off (mostly off thank goodness) throughout the flight. And the woman wasn't much better. There for a while all we heard was “Settle.” “Bark.” Settle.” “Bark.” “Settle.” “Bark.” Yeah, it was annoying. I'll take babies on a plane any day.

So, that was our travel experience to and from Atlanta. I'll talk about the actual trip in my next entry. At least I can look back now and laugh at the situation. At the time it was happening, I was not pleased.