trip from hell

i hate fog.

i had to go on a trip to jeffersonville, indiana for work this past tuesday and wednesday.  the trip itself was fine.  it was the return flight (and subsequent chaos) that destroyed my will to live for a few hours wednesday night and into thursday morning.

let me explain...

my return flight wednesday night was scheduled to leave from louisville, ky at 8 pm and layover in charlotte, nc from 9-10 before arriving at dulles around midnight.  the first leg of the trip went without a hitch.  on the way from charlotte to dc however, the pilot reported "low visiblity" (fog) on the ground at dulles and said we'd circle for 15 mins or so.  we waited, but to no avail as his voice came over the intercom after the 15 minutes were up saying that conditions were worsening so we were headed to harrisburg, pa to wait it out.

at this point it was rounding midnight on wednesday (thursday morning) and people were getting antsy.  the plane was a small, cramped express-type jet with seat cushions that desperately needed replacing (think cardboard, but with less padding).  nothing could be done however, so we flew the extra distance to harrisburg and landed there.  the pilot came on the intercom again saying we had to wait on the plane for an hour before trying again at dulles.  at that point, he gave us the option of getting off the plane and either staying at a hotel in harrisburg or getting a cab to dulles (a 3 hr/$260 trip).  i guess this was a good thing because all the impatient people got off the plane, leaving all of us good-natured, generally pleasant people (the majority) with the plane to ourselves.  usually i'm pretty unflappable when it comes to things like this, but at this point, my phone was dying, my butt was aching, and my nerves were wearing extremely thin.  the flight attendants did whatever they could to appease our disgruntled, tired selves but there's only so many dry crackers and cups of lukewarm water one can take at 2 am.  if i were them i'd say "f it" and start handing out the miniature bottles of tequila and bud light, but sadly they had more self-control than me.

an hour later, the pilot's voice came over the intercom yet again saying dulles had shut down for the night(!) due to thick fog and the plane would be heading back to charlotte.  at that point, he gave the rest of us the opportunity to get off the plane and said that the airline would pay for a taxi ride to dulles, or we could fly back to charlotte, wait a couple hours in the empty airport and hope to find another flight home in the morning.  most of the remaining people (including me) elected to take the free ride home and get off the plane.  what they didn't tell us was that the number of taxis in harrisburg that operate at 3 am are few and far between (we probably should have known).  so, once we got off the plane and were herded into the terminal, we had to wait another 45 mins for the taxi company to get people out of bed and to the airport.  and we thought we had it bad...

finally, i (along with three other random strangers) piled into a taxi driven by a cranky 60 yr old grandma that reeked of cigarette smoke.  she looked like a female version of clint eastwood.  all the similarities ended with her appearance however, because she stayed true to form when it came to her driving skills.  she drove SO SLOW.  i'm talking 45 mph max on 4 lane highways.  and of course she didn't know the way so she had to follow another driver who drove at normal speeds, who we subsequently lost about 30 seconds after getting onto the highway.  this led to her squawking into her cellphone the entire way asking for directions (girlfriend seriously needs to invest in a gps) which made it almost impossible to sleep.  at one point (about 30 miles from frederick, md) the fog was bad enough to make her uncomfortable driving (i don't blame her, the stuff was like soup) so she pulled over and decided to wait until daylight to continue.  i think it was around 5 am at that point.  so there we were, a bunch of random strangers whose feeble attempts at civility had long given way to tired grunts and incoherent mumbling, sitting on the side of rt.15 in a bright orange harrisburg city taxi trying desperately to get some sleep.  needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

i woke up around 6:30 to find we were in the middle of rt. 7 traffic.  the taxi driver decided to save her best for last and crept along at a mind boggingly slow 35 mph on rt 7 (55 mph limit).  cars were literally racing past us.  i thought we were gonna get pulled over; it was that bad.  it took us another half hour to drive a total of 5-6 miles on what was more or less an open highway despite the normal morning traffic.

finally, a full 7 hours and 30 mins after our original posted arrival time, we made it to dulles.  i almost cried when my feet hit the pavement.  i'm pretty sure my leg muscles had begun to atrophy from being wedged in various cramped positions over the course of the previous 8 hours because my knees literally buckled when i tried to put weight on them.  i had to re-teach myself to walk for about 5 mins after getting out of the cab.  it was sad.  i didn't even say bye to anyone after i got out.  you'd think i would have formed some sort of bond with the people i had just suffered through this ordeal with, but nope, i just walked away without so much as a glimpse back.  my mind was mush and i'm sure if i had tried to say anything it would have come out as either angry raving or jumbled gobbedly-gook, so i decided to spare my fellow road warriors and just find myself another taxi home asap.  i will say that some people definitely had it worse.  one lady had to take another 2 hour cab ride back to her house after arriving at dulles.  she's probably dead. 

but i guess all's well that ends well.  i took yesterday off, got 14 hours of travel comp time (make up vacation time, some of which was used immediately b/c of my day off), and took a much needed 6 hour nap with my dog on the couch.

i'm never flying again.