Trip to Kansas

Traveling between northern Virginia and Anthony, KS ended up taking much longer than originally anticipated, but the opportunity to see so many friends made it worthwhile.

The original plan: On Sunday, Dec 20, JM's local family takes us to the airport after church, leaving by 2:00 pm. Catch a 4:20 pm plane out of Dulles arrive in Kansas around 9:30 pm after an hour layover in Dallas, TX. Be met at the airport by my mom or sister for trip back to Anthony. Arrive by 11:00 pm. Total expected travel time: 9 hours.

The actual event:
Pre-travel. Weather on Saturday is snowiest day the area has seen in years. 16" of snow at our home. Dulles experiencing severe delays with numerous flights canceled and the airport closes at 6:30 pm. Church is canceled. We decide to leave a lot more time for ourselves at the airport

Sunday, Departing Dulles. We leave the house about 30 minutes later than planned--about 11:30 am. Stop at the mall to pick up the pictures of TGM that we want to take with us to Kansas and grab some lunch. Arrive at the airport about 1:30 pm. While JM stand in line to check the baggage (about 45 minutes), I feed TGM. She then has a dirty diaper blow-out, which I'm cleaning up in the bathroom when JM has gotten the luggage checked. We then go stand in the line for security (another 45 minutes). At 3:13, we arrive at our gate to find that two flights are scheduled to depart "on-time" at 3:15 out of the same gate and neither flight has boarded yet. This isn't looking good for us getting out on-time. When we board our flight an 1.5 hours later, neither of those planes had boarded yet. (One had a plane sitting at the gate, but the flight crew was coming by car from Reagan. The other had a plane and flight crew, but no gate.) After hearing the stories of others, we felt good that our flight was getting out of there only 50 minutes late.

Sunday, Arriving in Dallas. We know we have less than 10 minutes to make our connection, so have only a slim hope of actually making it. Our plane arrives at the gate only to be informed that because we are late, we will now have to wait 25 minutes to get to the gate. A gate change is requested. D and Greg are monitoring our progress live by internet and call us to confirm the gate change only a minute after we get the confirmation from the pilot. With their encouragement, we make the dash to the next gate. By the time we arrive at the gate, they already know what we find out--the flight has departed on-time and we are stranded in Dallas for the night.

Sunday night in Dallas. D has already called a cousin--Fred and Luci--in the area and confirmed that they can host us for the evening, but learns they are unable to pick us up at the airport. While we confirm that we are booked for the morning flight, D calls another cousin--Stephen and Jen--to arrange transportation from the airport. As an added bonus, Stephen and Jen have a baby just a few weeks older than TGM, so they are able to lend us an infant car seat for travel and a pack and play for sleeping. We arrive at our host home around 9:30 pm (central time).

Travel time for Sunday: 11:30AM ET - 9:30PM CT. 11 hours.

Monday morning in Dallas. Our alarm goes off at 6:30 AM. After breakfast with our hosts, we leave at 7:30 AM to catch our 9:20 AM flight. Luci has confirmed our gate before dropping us off. Despite DFW security having one of the longest lines I have seen there, we are at the gate by 8:00AM. (DFW is the best airports I know for getting between the drop-off/pick-up areas and the gates!) Everything runs smoothly and we have an on-time flight.

Monday, arriving in Wichita. JM and I had previously made plans to visit SR and Andrew in Arkansas two days after arriving in Kansas. Since we were arriving a day late in Kansas, it was suggested and agreed that we make the trip to Arkansas a day earlier--straight from the airport. My parents arrived at the airport with two vehicles. We grabbed some lunch at a local fast-food place while they showed us some maps and we discussed the best route for the trip. My parents returned home in their truck while we took their van and headed for Arkansas.

Monday, arriving in Arkansas. The drive went very well. We only made a couple of short stops along the way and made excellent time in the sunny weather. We arrived at SR's home about 5:30 PM.

Travel time for Monday: 7:30 AM - 5:30 RM. 10 hrs.

Visit in Arkansas. We enjoyed relaxing with SR and Andrew. He came home less than an hour after we arrived. SR made us a wonderful chicken supper. We were all tired, so called it an evening fairly early and got some sleep. Tuesday, SR arranged for a small-world lunch: My friend Suzanne from graduate school had moved down to that area a couple of years ago and had met Andrew and SR in that area. After lunch, SR showed us some sites in the area, including a trip by the library where Suzanne works. An evening of pizza and guitar hero rounded out the day of visiting and relaxing.

Wednesday, home at last. Wednesday morning, we took our time pakcing and saying good-by. We pulled out of the drive around 11:30am. The drive was a bit more interesting, with rain showers a good bit of the way. Heavy rain was encountered at two different points in the drive. But it didn't slow us down much and with only a couple of stops along the way, we pulled into home in Anthony about 5:30 pm.

Travel time for Wednesday: 11:30 AM - 5:30 PM. 6 hrs.

Total travel time: 27 hours. 4 Days. We could've driven from Virginia in that time--but we wouldn't have had wonderful visits with our cousins in Texas and my sister in Arkansas and we wouldn't have experienced the tactical and logistical support from my sister in Kansas.

When we arrived home, it was to another marked reminder that Grandma is continuing to decline in her health. Prayers for her are much appreciated!

Praying for safe travels to everyone traveling this holiday season!!