We Are Never Flying Again (Until the Next Time)

We recently took a trip to California. We went with our close friends who have boys the same age as ours, whom we often vacation with. First off I want to say it was a great trip, no major disasters or anything. Everyone seemed to have a great time, even if we were all totally exaughsted at the end of the day. Even the weather was wonderful, right up to the day we had to fly home. While lying in bed that morning I heard thunder. Upon getting out of the shower I could hear the rain pouring down and the thunder continued to get louder and closer. When I looked at the weather report for the day it indicated that the storms would increase towards the afternoon. Great. Our flight wasn't supposed to leave till 5pm and we were going to do a bit of sight seeing that day. Not exactly a fun rainy day activity. It was pretty warm and muggy when we headed out. I wore a comfy jersey knit dress and the boys were in shorts, we were on our way by 9:30am. By the time we stopped for lunch it was still raining pretty good and was considerably colder. At this point, on our last day, I was more than ready to be home. Instead of continuing to drive around aimlessly I just wanted to head to the airport. I figured we could wander around inside, or the boys could watch movies. As we were dropping off the rental car husband gets a notification that our flight has been delayed. We were supposed to make a connection in L.A. but with the delay it was pretty unlikely we'd make it. It is now 2pm. Once we arrive at the airport to check in we express our concern for making our connecting flight. She changes our flight for one that was supposed to leave at 2, but hasn't arrived yet. This would allow for more time to make the connection. Once we arrive at the gate the flight continues to get delayed. We have frozen yogurt in place of dinner, because I'm so stressed I need a treat to help me feel better. The plane finally arrives at 4:50 and is supposed to be leaving at 5:00. All the passengers are hurried off and then we are hurried on, where we proceed to wait on the plane for about 20-30 minutes. The captian comes over the P.A. to announce that upon initial inspection scorch marks were discovered near one of the engines, the plane must have been hit by lightning on the flight over. The plane must be further inspected, which could take an hour. We are all asked to leave the plane and await further instructions as to when the plane might leave. There is no way we are making a connection out of L.A. at this point. I'm super irritated. We try to get another flight out that night but our airline has nothing till 6:15 the next morning. We can book on another airline and try to get our money back for our unused tickets, but that seems pretty unlikely. The airline could give us vouchers for a hotel, however the hotels they have vouchers for are fully booked, as well as every other hotel in the area. There was a pride event happening in San Deigo that weekend. The flight is eventually cancelled, which at this point if we could have taken it would have only left us stranded in L.A. for the night. Although we may have had better luck with a hotel there. At 8:30 I take the boys back to the food court to get them some dinner. I skip eating, I'm so mad I can't even think about eating. Afterwards I take them over to some couches I'd found earlier in the day in hopes of getting them to sleep a bit. Husband has to retrieve our checked items and re check them for our new flight. I get the boy all set up to sleep and the small one, who is totally wound up at 9:15, goes with husband. The boy seems to fall asleep quicky and I have a little bit of hope that perhaps the night won't be that bad. Then husband returns and tells me that the terminal area will close at 11 and we will have to go out to the ticketing area until they reopen at 4am. What? Security almost didn't let them back into the terminal. Also, they wouldn't recheck the bags because it was too early. Husband manged to yell and get his way. They kept our bags in the airline office and checked them on a direct flight home so they would arrive before us. So now I have to wake the boy up and we have to go out to the tiled floor ticketing area where there are no couches. At 10:20 husband gets a call that they found a room for us at some ungodly rate. We decide to pass, seeing as we'd have to be back soon for our early flight, it just wasn't worth it. We hang out in the terminal a bit longer, trying to let the boy sleep as much as we can. Then we pack up and move. I'm freezing, because as you'll recall, I'm wearing a light, jersey knit dress. I also don't have my clothes because they've been checked. We lay out our beach towels for the boys to sleep on and I pull out pajama pants for them to put on over their shorts. By 12:30 they are both asleep. They sleep pretty restlessly till about 3:45. We pack up yet again and head into the terminal to wait for our plane yet again. This time we get to fly out as scheduled. The small one sleeps the entire first flight. When we landed he woke up screaming and was nearly inconsolable, but otherwise the rest of the flight home was uneventful. Luckily this all happened on the way home, because I'm not sure how readily they would get back on a plane had this mishap occurred on our way there. All in all they were troopers, but we were all very glad to be home.