Missed Connection

      Sometimes everything goes right with a flight. It's on time, smooth, and you have plenty of time to catch your connecting flight. And then sometimes things don't go right. We are dealing with one of those situations right now. Things started off mostly OK. We got to the airport, Travis got a pat down, and our carry on luggage got flagged (twice) going through security. They had to test my protein bars. That was a new one on me. But since they were in fact real protein bars, they were fine. They also flagged the bin with the carry on full of dolls and Travis's backpack. But they didn't open either, so I don't know what that was about. And we didn't have to take our shoes off. That was cool. 

     We got to the gate and had more than enough time. The boarding time came, but there was no plane. We waited some more. And then a bit more. Finally, there was a plane at the gate. Eventually, they even let us get on it. It was a little plane. They had everyone valet check their roller bags, because they don't fit in the overhead bins. OK. 

     So we found our seats and we waited. And then waited some more. Apparently, another flight to Philadelphia had been canceled and they were trying to get as many people as they could from that flight onto our flight. But then, they decided the flight was overweight because the wind had shifted and the long runway was closed. So then they needed a bunch of people to volunteer to get off the plane and book a different flight. That took over an hour. People would ask for more information, people got off the plane and back on it again. Eventually, we took off. 

    I remembered we needed an airplane selfie. The flight was pretty quick, only about 45 minutes, and I took a nap for most of it. When we landed, it was 7 minutes after our connecting flight had taken off. Crap. So we went to the gate to talk to an agent and see what could be done. Apparently nothing could be done until tomorrow. We are rebooked on a flight to Lexington tomorrow afternoon. And the airline won't pay for a hotel because they say they only do that if the delay was for mechanical issues. Well, I didn't cause us to miss our connection so I will have to call and get them to pay for my hotel here in Philadelphia. But that is a problem for a different day. 

      Since the airline still has our luggage we are missing some essential items so we had to run out to Walmart. We also needed to get something to eat. So we went out in a horrendous storm. If the need for certain items hadn't been an immediate need we might have waited. There was a lot of road flooding, but we made it safely. It was not a big Walmart so they had some food, but not a ton of options. When we got out of the store the rain had slowed to a drizzle. And we had an uneventful trip back to the hotel. 

     I said to Travis that we are having an adventure and I asked him if it was good or bad. He said it was good. So that's something. He also said he wanted to go to a horse show. He needs to wait, I don't show until Thursday. 

      So we don't need to be to the airport until about 1:30 so maybe tomorrow morning we can find something to do in Philadelphia. Tomorrow we were going to go out to Mammoth Cave and to the dollhouse museum. But now we won't get to Lexington until those are closed. I am not sure if we will have time to go out and do those things on Monday. I am vaguely annoyed to miss out on those things. But we're having an adventure. And I guess we're just going to roll with it.