Travel Woes

The art of storytelling is as diverse as the people who tell them. Some are gifted in the oral presentation of a narrative, captivating their listening audience through timely changes in tone, improvisation, and the occasional embellishment to maximize the enjoyment of the experience. Others tell their stories through the visual or media arts, still others through the written word. It has been said that in my own anecdotal offerings, that at times I may have moderately exaggerated or minimized a fact or two, turning an otherwise ordinary sequence of events or circumstances into a hair-raising tale of daring and adventure. Yet in the experience I'm about to relate to you, I fear that no prose I proffer can feign away the fact that every twist and turn of the travel nightmare that was Monday's trip to Maryland is undeniably and incontrovertibly true.

Normally, I prefer to do my airline travel early in the morning. Summertime in the South is frequently marked by afternoon thunderstorms, oppressive heat, and frustrating flight delays. Were I to get out in the morning, the probability of avoiding all that and getting to my destination early is usually pretty good. It allows me the opportunity to get to my hotel, get settled in and get a good night sleep before the next day's meeting or conference. On Monday, however, nary did I navigate my way North before noon. A fellow co-worker coming from a point further west was to meet me in Atlanta, so that we could share both the flight to Baltimore and a rental car to save on our travel budget. Those arrangements forced us into a late afternoon flight from Atlanta. My plan was to leave North Alabama around 1:00, and arrive in Atlanta with roughly 2.5 hours to spare. We'd get to Baltimore around 7:30 and to the hotel an hour later. Everything was going to plan, indeed right on schedule, until the time I actually arrived at the airport.

Mother Nature descended upon Atlanta with a fury. My 1:00 flight did not leave the ground until after 5:00. In the interim, we got on the plane, then got off the plane, got on the plane again, got off the plane again, with interminable delays and chaos in between. To be sure, I'd rather be stewing in the terminal during a delay than being turned into stew on a sweltering CRJ sitting on the tarmac. By the second deplaning event, I knew that making the connection to Baltimore would be all but impossible, even though it was delayed as well due to several ground stops in Atlanta (no flights in, no flights out). So after standing in line behind an increasingly edgy crowd of passengers, I asked the gate agent whether the better option would be to reschedule my departure to the first flight out the next morning. True, I would miss a half-day of my meeting, but it seemed to me preferable to the risk of getting stranded in Atlanta overnight. But no, my heroic gate agent informed me that I could still make it to Baltimore that evening, on the last flight out of Atlanta, scheduled for 9:30, putting me at my hotel shortly after midnight. Within 10 minutes of that conversation, we were instructed to board our plane for the third time - we had a 15 minute window to get the flight in the air, or it would be cancelled. Fortuitous, perhaps. But in the air, we did get.

As expected, upon arrival in Atlanta, I learned that I had missed the connecting flight. My travel partner was successful, however, and upon arriving in Baltimore he called me with an offer to wait until I arrived so that we could share the car. At the time, I was meandering between gates, as the gate assignment for my 9:30 flight kept changing. Then, my 9:30 flight was rescheduled for 10:55. I called my co-worker, and advised him to forget the cost and get himself a car, which he did. Meanwhile, I tried to contain my envy. The 10:55 departure then slipped to 11:50, and again to 12:55. Note that this is 12:55 a.m., Tuesday morning. By the time the wheels came up from the Atlanta runway, it was 1:15.

Mind you, this undoubtedly was frustrating enough, but nevertheless completely out of my control. As I winged my way over North Carolina, however, I realized that there was one decision I could have made differently today, that could have changed everything. Upon checking in at the airport, I was offered the chance to take an earlier flight into Atlanta - it was about to board, but I could have made it. Had I taken that earlier flight, everything would have ended differently. But hindsight is hindsight, and there was no sense navel-gazing about it. While sitting in Atlanta, I had called to verify that my car reservation and my hotel reservation would hold. I was assured in both instances that everything was taken care of, and my reservations would be waiting for me upon arrival. This would prove not to be the case.

I landed in Baltimore shortly after 3:00 a.m. You would think that a 5 hour delay in Atlanta would be sufficient for my luggage to find its way onto my plane. Apparently, fate and the baggage handlers weren't quite done with me yet, for those fine men and women determined that my luggage was desperately needed in Bloomington, Illinois. How did it end up there, you ask? Someone misread my label on my bag. Instead of sending it to BWI (Baltimore), they sent it to BMI (Bloomington). The baggage office at BWI was able to track it immediately, but noted it would not arrive back to BWI until 3:00pm Tuesday at the earliest. Given that there was nothing else I could do, I headed off to the rental car center by 3:40 a.m.

At this point, you would understandably think that with everything that did not go right for Jim so far, what are the chances that there would be a problem with his rental car? Can this story really get worse? Yes, it can! I walk up to the guaranteed 24-hour (name redacted) car rental service, to find all the registers closed, the lights off, and no one to direct me to a supposedly waiting car reservation. I spoke with the bus driver, and with the only other human being in the place (an agent for a competing car rental service), and both confirmed to me that my preferred service never stays open all night. By this time, it is 4:20 a.m., and I'm beginning to wonder whether I will even make it to my meeting at 8:00 a.m. So, although I had previously sworn off the competing service (another story which involves a 3-month harassment by that service's European office that I pay 352 euros for a car I never rented), I asked the agent if he had anything left. To my joy, he had two minivans left. The first he gave me did not have the key in the ignition, so I ended up with the other, which turned out to be the last vehicle available. By 4:50, I was on my way to the hotel.

Now, you can imagine what was going through my mind by the time I arrived at the hotel at 5:45. Was my reservation still there? By this point, I had been awake for 23 hours, and probably not looking or smelling my best. But I figured that the fact I had a preferred membership with that hotel chain would be something in my favor. So much for my figuring. The manager on duty informed me that my reservation was cancelled as a no-show. I think that the events of the previous 17 hours conditioned me in some way, because I did not lose my cool, but calmly explained that I had called to specifically request and ensure that my reservation held, and that my arrival could not be determined due to my troubles with air travel. I even had the phone record to prove it. With Murphy sitting on my shoulder, the manager told me that no note was placed into the system by the hotel clerk from the night before. So the night manager had no record of my request or my travails. So after giving me a gentle lecture about proper procedures, she then took pity on me (I suppose), and put me in the one room they had immediately available (clean, in other words). She erased my no-show penalty fee, and created a new 2-night reservation to replace the 3-night reservation. Without a doubt, I was tremendously grateful.

By 6:00 a.m., I was in my room. I washed my face and then rested for not quite two hours. I did not fall asleep, however. I got up about 8:30 a.m., drank some coffee, sent an email to let my co-workers know my status, and then drove a short distance down the road to Target to buy a change of clothes. I went back to the hotel, got showered and dressed, and arrived at my meeting shortly after 10:00. I would work the whole day, all the while marveling at the number of consecutive hours without sleep and its impact on my cognitive abilities. I tried to rest that early evening, but simply could not unwind enough to sleep, so I stared at the television without really paying much attention to what I was watching. I ordered room service, hoping that the meal would help relax me, all the while wondering about my suitcase. I decided to use the guest laundry to wash my clothes from Monday, just in case. Joyfully, after the 10:30 p.m. arrival of my luggage (which I learned was not waterproof), I finally drifted off to sleep sometime past 11:30 p.m. Tuesday evening, nearly 41 hours after I had woken up Monday morning.

The day Wednesday went well, despite only getting about 6 hours of sleep. I got another 6 hours Wednesday night. Thursday was another travel day, and was by and large uneventful. Even my luggage made it this time. I was home by 3:00 pm. It should not surprise you that I elected to take today (Friday) as a day off.

You may be tempted to believe that the above cannot possibly be all true. Believe me, I looked for the opportunity to add a trademark embellishment or two. But it simply wasn't there to be embellished. How disappointing, really. It takes some of the fun out of the telling. Sigh. I will say this, however. I have to make a return trip in August. You can be sure, travel budgets and travel companions notwithstanding, I'll be taking the early flight out.

Update 7/23: I decided to redact the names of the car rental services and hotel as not pivotal to the story.