Since I'm planning on flying back to LAS on the 24th, I needed to start my trip out of there so my car would be waiting when I got back. My grand plan was to cut work early, make the drive to LAS, and fly to DFW via Denver from there.
Well, as with anything in my life...things didn't quite go to plan. Work was crazy busy thanks to broken airplanes and weather issues...not to mention several sick calls. I originally was trying to cut out by 11am...but, I volunteered to cover a dispatch desk on top of my coordinating duties. Talk about non-stop stress and phonecalls.
One of my friends from work, Jenn, was trying to cut out early, too...but, as with me, the sick calls prevented her from getting out of there and she stuck it out. Because of this, she wasn't able to catch her 9am flight home from St. George to Salt Lake and continuing on to Gunnison/Crested Butte, Colorado. Knowing each other's situation, we decided to ride to Vegas together...then over to Denver. Both of our connecting flights in Denver were later in the evening...so we figured we could just hang in the airport bar 'til it was time for us to catch our flights home.
We hit the road at 1pm Utah time...and, with traffic, construction, parking, security, etc...we made it to the gate at 2:39pm for a 2:59pm flight to Denver. Nice timing, eh? We immediately checked in to request the jumpseat and, for once, we had a great UA gate agent who gave us E-Plus seats together on a Ted A320 with a new regular United Airlines paintjob...with no one in the between. So far, so good. We decided we deserved a Bloody Mary after the day we'd had...so we killed one apiece while making fun of pilots on Channel 9 (a favorite pastime of mine on the LAS-DEN run).
Touched down in Denver...where the temp. was a lovely, comfortable 7 degrees F out there. Sweet Raptor Jesus.. Jenn claims the flight attendants made some kind of announcement on approach to 35L about "in event of impact, please take crash position"...I just think that Bloody went straight to her head.
Pulled in at gate B-16...and had to make the one mile trek to the B-80's gates. Thaaaaat was fun. LOL. But, the payoff was some Fat Tire beers and a pretty excellent sandwich & salad. OK, fine...we had quite a few Fat Tires...LOL. I was supposed to get on a 7pm flight...but it went out full. That gave us 2 more hours of drinking time...and that was awesome.
In the midst of our beer drinking and scattershooting (and me screaming at the Cowboys on the TV)...Jenn got a text message from a colleague that said "just got report that CO 737 crashed on DEN 34R". We both looked at each other like so as to say "What the hell?". We had a great view of the approach end of the 35's and we noticed that all approaching traffic had broken off and the runway lights had been dimmed. At this point, we both knew something was up. We decided to keep quiet about I...until an hour later when the word trickled to that side of the airport. (Turns out, the report was true...a Continental Airlines 737 did a rejected/aborted take off and, somehow, found themselves in a snowy ditch when it was all said and done. The aircraft did catch fire...but, apparently, a full evacuation was completed with mostly minor injuries. Kudos to the crew.)
Jenn and I parted ways after a couple too many beers to head over to our flights. Because of the aircraft incident, the airport was pandemonium with misconnecting passengers, etc. My flight was delayed another hour...allowing for some folks that were trying to get to Austin and OKC to be moved to the DFW flight. Tack on the fact that there was already a pilot requesting the jumpseat (which was beside the point since, after sip number one of that glorious Two Below, I was no longer legally eligible to ride up there). About the time I realized all of this, I got a text from Jenn saying "MY FLIGHT IS CANCELED!!! DAMMIT!!!".
Yup...good times. Seeing that we were stuck...we quickly found a cheap room with 2 beds at a hotel near the airport before all others figured out THEY were stuck. One teeny-weeny problem...Jenn green-tagged* her bag when she boarded her Gunnison flight...and never got it back when it was canceled (* - tag that indicates that this bag is a carry-on that won't fit on a smaller regional jet...the passenger is supposed to get this bag back at the gate when they get to their destination.). We spent the next two hours using every bit of pull, clout, and people we know to find that bag. It didn't surface before we decided to find a hotel shuttle, get checked in, and snag some sleep.
We were both awake by 0600...damn the nature of our normal sleep patterns...so I called and convinced Brian and Chuck to pick us up for breakfast. Flying J truckstop breakfast buffet is actually pretty good...but I hear the coffee is awful...LOL.
Jenn picked up some toothpaste, etc. at the truckstop and we scored ride to the airport from B&C...
Lucky for Jenn, we found her bag almost immediately.when we got to DEN and she managed to score the jumpseat to GUC. I got a seat in the exit row on a 757...should have been 1st class...but the gate agent used my jumpseat priority instead of my non-rev priority...grrr.
All in all...a pretty funny story all around...especially drunken texting by both of us....
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
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