Traveling to TribalCon this year included some extensive air travel, something I have not done for a good many years. I decided to take an early flight on Wednesday, so that I would be in ATL with plenty of time to get checked in, rest and be ready for the keynote speech with Donna Mejia, something I am still looking very forward to doing.
Early travel meant being up at 5am, no easy feat for Joyce. But, I did it, and was on the plane by 7am enroute to Seattle (SeaTac). Our flight was a little delayed, but the big news was that my second flight had been delayed by over 2 hours. I got a call n Tuesday to inform me of this, but when I got the airport in Fairbanks they did not have that information, so coupled with my lack of sleep, I arrive at SeaTac just after 11am local time quite confused. I found the flight, and it was originally scheduled to leave at 1:10, but had been changed to 3:55. So I figured I had a few hours to kill and decided to wander. I stopped at the Body Shop, but was too tired to make any decisions on what to get, so I wandered around the food court trying to figure out what to eat. I settled on Fish and Chips from Anthony’s Fish Shack/House which I was less than impressed with; next time I will go to the Japanese place that had spicy tofu (nestled next to the Wendy’s in the found court which is why I didn’t notice it the first time).
After eating I wandered the main terminal a bit more, finding lots of places to sit and plug in my laptop while I goof around on FB, tribe and my email. Decided that I just was not satisfied with the fish and chips I had, so I stopped in DISH D’Lish to get a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich, and a big mocha. They had a place where I could charge the laptop, so I ate, surfed a bit more, and enjoyed my coffee. I noticed my laptop said it was 2pm, so I decided to pack it up and head out to the subway to get to my gate. By the time I arrived, the board had a new depart time of 3:27, so I quickly walked to my gate, only to find it dark, deserted of all passengers and the two attendants looked like they were packing up shop.
I had missed my flight.
Apparently my laptop does not pick up local time, and was an hour behind, so when I thought it was 2pm, it was actually 3pm local time. Even so, I should have made it! Why the airline changed the time by over two hours and then changed it again to an earlier time is beyond m e, but there it was; I was at the gate no later than 3:28, but the plane was gone. Sigh.
A nice attendant found me the next flight, the redeye at 10:30, and gave me a couple of meal tickets for my trouble. SO, it is now 9:30 local time, and I am waiting at the gate for the flight. I will not let the gate out of my sight, until I walk through it. The good part about this is I had time to fix my blog, and get in an hour of work. I am scheduled to arrive at 6am (time change, flight is only 4 hours) and I plan to sleep on the flight and then sleep more at the hotel, so until tomorrow, have a great night!