The Flight Home

Our weekend was great.....my flight home was NOT so great. Rand and I were, again, on separate flights. His to Phoenix, mine to Seattle. Rachel was planning on picking me up, so I called her when I got on the plane to let her know that it looked like we were leaving on time. We both know there is always that chance, but usually if you board the plane on time you land pretty close to on time.
Somewhere around 3 hours into the flight the pilot came on. He informed us that due to HORRIBLE thunder storms across the mid-west, air-traffic had been diverted to the south. In fact, we were flying over Texas at that time. Because of all the air traffic being diverted to the south part of the United States there were a lot of planes flying too close together. So they had asked several planes to do a 360 to create more space between air crafts. Our plane was one of those planes. The pilot informed us that the 360 was going to put us at least an hour behind schedule. Oh, and then he mentioned that all the extra flying was going to run us a little low on fuel, so there was a chance we would have to land to re-fuel before getting to Seattle. Ugh. That really stinks. Have I mentioned yet that they have stopped serving snacks on most flight now. You don't even get that tiny bag of pretzels or peanuts anymore. I was pretty much starving. The cool thing was that I was on the right hand side of the plane and could see this huge storm system out my window. It was HUGE and so amazing.....and a tad scary considering we were in an airplane. Apparently, the thunder clouds were as high as 60,000 feet, so there was no way they were going to fly through it.
It was at least 2 hours later when the pilot got on the PA again. He told us that the last "turn" we made basically sealed our fate and we would have to stop for fuel in Salt Lake City.
So, we landed in Salt Lake City.
We taxied just a short way off the runway and the gas-guys came to the plane. The re-fuel was only supposed to take 20 mins and we should be back in the air.
Unfortunately that was not the case.
Again, the pilot gets back on the speakers....feeling the like the bearer of bad news. Apparently the flight attendants, and no one at the airport can locate any working "air stairs"...whatever those are...and they cannot legally fill the plane.
So we had to taxi to a terminal gate which took forever because we had to wait for a plane to be pulled out of the way and then park it so that it could get filled.
When we were on the ground I called Rachel. I wasn't sure if she had checked the Internet before she left or if she might be in Seattle waiting.
R:"Hello?"
Me:"Hi."
R:"Are you in Salt Lake City?"
Me:"Yes I am! How did you know?" :)
Smart girl had checked the Internet, but dumb Internet didn't have all the correct info. up. The website told her that my flight had been diverted to Salt Lake City, but it still said arriving in Seattle at 9:00. My parents live 75 minutes from the airport so she decided to leave. Luckily she has a good friend who lives 15 minutes from the airport, so she went and hung out there.
Finally, they got the plane filled and we flew another hour and 40 mins to Seattle. I got in somewhere around 12:30 and then drove an hour and a half to my parents house. I crawled into bed at 2:30am and all I kept thinking was it's 5:30 in Philadelphia. They will all be getting up to start their day soon.
It was an interesting ending to the weekend. Too bad they didn't refuel in Phoenix and I could of just gotten off and gone home...caught a flight the next day. But it worked out. I'm still not feeling caught up on sleep, so I think I'll go get some! Sure is great to see the little boys again!