Overnight in...no not Denver...San Francisco

I was freshly ensonced in my hotel room when I thought I had better phone Great Lakes and give them my flight information so they could go ahead and handwrite my luggage tag to save time the next morning. Got that done and had just settled down to watch the Food Network when the phone rang. Guess who was on the line? Vickie from Great Lakes with the good news that my flight the next morning had been cancelled, but if I could get to the airport, I could take the two-hour delayed flight to Denver. Well, what could I do? I had to get to DIA so I could get my connecting flight to San Francisco by 8:23 the next morning, so I checked out of the hotel that I had enjoyed for three hours, and made my way to the airport with the off-duty shuttle driver who was nice enough to come and get me.

I had already decided to just spend the night at the Denver airport instead of a hotel so I didn't have to get my luggage and go through Denver security early the next morning, but Vickie gave me a hotel voucher anyway and told me to make sure I collected my bag. Once I convinced her that I wasn't going to do that, she took the voucher back, and changed my luggage tag back to the original.

Got to Denver and decided to see if I could fly standby on the 8:50 San Francisco flight. (I figured getting to SF that night was better than hanging out at the Denver airport all night.) Yep, got that. When I asked about my bag, I was told that it probably would be forwarded on the next morning. Probably? Probably?????

Got to San Francisco close to midnight. Nothing open. Nowhere to go. Hung around the international terminal. About 5:00 am I decided to call United and see if they could tell me where my bag was. Nope. Nothing in the system. Told to go to baggage claim and talk with an attnedant. So, took the AirTrain over to terminal 3 and told the lady there my tale of woe. She sent info to Great Lakes and United and I sat down to wait. Checked again about 45 minutes later. Nope, nothing yet.

I decided to not worry about it, and headed back to the international terminal since it was almost time for them to open up the ticket counters. Got ticketed, went through security into the terminal in search of something good to eat for breakfast. Nope, nothing open. Went to the domestic terminal, once again had to go through security, but found a decent breakfast place. Well, not decent, but Burger King was open, so I had breakfast, then went on back to the international terminal. Yes, through security once again. Checked the departure screen, nothing listed for Taipei, so I decided just to sit and wait. Pretty soon, I heard the announcement that Taipei would be leaving at Gate 93. So to Gate 93 I went. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, it was almost time to board. Even the flight crew had gotten on the airplane.

And gotten off. And had to go to gate 97. This is the first time I've seen a flight crew get on and get back off to go to a different gate. Finally, it was our turn to board. I got on, got settled, put the seat belt on and tightened it up. It loosened. I tightened it up. It loosened again. I hit the call light. Flight attendants all busy. I stood up and looked around and caught the eye of one attendant at the door. She came, tried the belt, and called a mechanic. Ten minutes later a new seat belt had been quickly installed. Much better.

I got settled in once again. Five minutes later more mechanics boarded, this time carrying a ladder. Cripes, what now? Oh, the pilot announced that they were there to get the communication system working. Good, that might just come in handy. That took about 15 minutes, then we were actually cleared to take off. The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful, although incredibly long. I napped a few times, watched a couple movies, and walked around a bit. Good thing I had seen the three half decent movies because my tv had decided to stop transmitting a picture. I forgot to tell them when I got off, so I imagine that the person who got my seat for the next morning's flight wasn't too happy!

Once through immigration, Gerry and I headed for baggage claim and the bathroom. (she had been lucky enough to fly standby from SF to Taipei. She wasn't sure if her husband had gotten the word to our local airport pick up service, so I told her if she didn't have a car waiting, she could ride along with me.) First stop, the baggage carousel. What? My bag was there. Amazing. Gerry got hers, we headed for the waiting area. No car for her. No problem. Luggage all put in mine and we set off with one of the worst drivers I've ever had in Taipei. And that is saying a lot. But...we made it back safely, and my long long long long experience of travel from Gothenburg, Nebraska to Taipei, Taiwan was finally over. I have five months to forget how bad a travel time I had this year. Moral of story? Be kind to airline personnel, and don't travel on the holidays.