Friday, June 29, 2007

Back home in Indiana......

Have you ever had that feeling of wondering if you are ever going to get home? I had that feeling yesterday.

On Tuesday I flew to NC to bowl in the women's national bowling tournament. All went well getting there. A side note though, I have never seen so many lazy people working at the airport. I want their job. I got into NC in the afternoon, my twin sister and her family picked me up we did some sightseeing then headed back to my cousins house for the rest of the day.

Before we got ready to bowl we took the her sprouts to the pool for a little cooling off in the 90+ degree weather. Off to the bowling center she and I went. It was the team event which started at 7pm for our squad. There were people at the bowling center that had serious issues with the dress code rules. People that should have got written up didn't and those that should not have gotten written up did. I have never seen that before. Then there were the rookie attendees that were mad because you could not drink beer or liquor while bowling in the tournament, so I had to listen to that the whole time, because the team we were bowling against did not like that rule.

The team did OK, my sister and I did well, all three of my games were over my 146 average that I had for this tournament so that was a good thing. I was happy with my scores for the team event.

Wed. we hung around my cousins place for the day, then got ready to bowl again for the doubles and singles portion of the tournament again at 7pm. In order for us to make the bowling center on time we had to leave at 4pm. Mind you this center was at the other end of town just off of the bypass that went around the town. Traffic in Charlotte, NC can come to a stand still for no apparent reason and does so, everyday. Had to factor that in.

So we endured the doubles and singles event. When the sixth game came along I was ready for the agony to be over with. I was actually to OK, not great but OK. The last game however, was my worse at a 112. I was not happy but you will have that from time to time. We had to hang around after it was over with to see if we won any money in the side events that we entered in. We won some the night before, but did not think we would be that lucky tonight, but you never know, everyone else might have had a bad night as well. Turns out we did win some. That was the only highlight of the evening. We got back to my cousins house at 1am Thursday morning and I have to be on a 7:55am flight for home. I got a lot of sleep...NOT.

I got up and ready to go, and woke up my brother-in-law and we headed to the airport. We got to the airport just after 6am, and was waiting in traffic to get to the departure area, I finally got out of the car and walked up to the doors, and we were not even up to the sidewalk at the start of the departure area. All I had to do was go up to the kiosk type in my info and get my boarding pass. I got into the airport around 6:30am and finally got my boarding pass just before 7am. The place was packed for of happy travelers that were stuck there over night because of the storms that went through over night. Now I have to find the end of one of the 4 security lines, as opposed to the lines of people for check in. I start to realize that making my 7:55am flight is going to take a miracle. The security line I was in went past two front doors of the airport before evening turning into the maze for happy travelers before getting to the security people. I made it through security at 7:33am and was not even near my gate yet. I finally made it on to the plane with about 7 minutes to spare. Otherwise I was going to have to call my sister to come and pick me up and I was going to have to ride home with her.

I land in Cleveland to discover that my flight to Chicago is delayed, and later discover that it has a maintenance issue, and by the time it makes it to Cleveland and ready to depart for Chicago my flight out of Chicago will have already left. I am screwed. There are people in Cleveland left over from the night before for Chicago so all flight to Chicago are booked on all airlines. They are correct if your flight is delayed or cancelled you are screwed for days or it is going to cost you lots of money for a new flight. Since my parents dropped me off at the airport on Tuesday I had no car to pick up. I called them and updated them on my status and they headed for Cleveland and picked me up. I was at my house by 6:30pm originally arriving around 3:30pm with golf at 4:30pm. I missed the golf but at least I made it home the same day. There are still people stuck at the airports.

The airlines have no plans to deal with mechanical issues, and they do not care either about that. The people that worked the ticket area in Charlotte, need a few customer service lessons as well. That was just by observing them.

I am glad to be back in Indiana today.

No comments: