Travel to Virginia, maybe

On Sunday, our trip from Kansas to Virginia was a little longer and more round-about than we had expected.

On the trip to Kansas, our second flight was delayed before we even checked in for the first flight and was delayed again before it actually departed. So when we checked in for the trip back to Virginia, we were happy to see that everything was still showing as on schedule. When we landed in Detroit, the second flight was still on schedule--even better. We found the gate and a place to sit. We were just discussing lunch possibilities when they announced a change in our flight--completely canceled due to mechanical difficulties. This was around 12:45 PM, canceling a 1:50 PM flight.

While two airline workers started re-booking tickets at the desk, they also made available flyers with a number to call for re-booking tickets. And here's where we discovered a problem--our phones weren't working. They acted like the cell network was overloaded and would tell us "This call can not be completed at this time." After trying repeatedly on both our phones, JM finally got a call through to the re-booking number.

- No, there were no seats available on flight to Dulles for the rest of the day. No, there was nothing available for tomorrow. There would be room on a flight going out at 9:00 PM on Tuesday.
- Are you sure there isn't something available earlier on another airline or to one of the other DC area airports?
(At this point, I managed to get a call out on my cell phone to my brother to ask how far of a drive it would be from Detroit to Virginia. The call got dropped, but he called me back to say it was 8.5 hours. Driving back sounded better than waiting for a Tuesday evening flight!)
- Well, there was a possibility of flying out at noon on Monday through Atlanta to get to Dulles.
JM had them change our tickets to that, but stayed in line to talk with one of the airline workers at the desk.

At the desk, we got the same answer for getting into Dulles. But we asked about more options--Richmond, Harrisonburg, (they offered us State Park, PA). Finally, they found us a flight to Pittsburgh leaving at 5:30 PM, arriving around 6:30 PM that evening.

The next project was to see if JM's family (about an hour from Pittsburgh) would be able to help us get back to Virginia or if we would need to try to rent a car. We tried to get a call out to them repeatedly while we had lunch. When we still couldn't get a call out on our cell phones by the end of lunch, we found a pay phone and called. We did seem to have more success receiving incoming calls, so they were able to call us back on our cell phone as we discussed arrangements.

The end result was that JM's mom and brother David drove two vehicles to the Pittsburgh airport to meet us. We drove his brother's car back to Virginia, while they headed back to their home. This actually wasn't a bad arrangement, as they already had planned to drive two vehicles to Virginia in a couple of weeks (after a New Year's trip to Arizona) to move some more of David's stuff down. He packed some of his stuff in the car we brought down. In a couple of weeks, both David and his mom will still come down, but they'll only have to drive the truck down.

So about 7:00 Sunday evening, JM and I left Pittsburgh airport in David's car. We arrived home in Virginia around 11:30--ready for bed.

And our checked luggage? It arrived at Dulles at 7:30 Sunday evening.