The Longest Day

A trip from Jacksonville to Northern Virginia should take about 4-5 hours door to door including time spent at the airport going through security and waiting to board the flight. So why did my trip Tuesday take 10 hours? Let’s take a look.

7:30 AM: Wake up with a dog sleeping next to me.

7:50 AM: Check flight status and see that my 11:00 AM flight is delayed an hour and a half. Look through other flight options and click “select” showing another flight going from Jacksonville to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Washington National.

8:00 AM: Realize that clicking select actually changed my flight. Then realize that I cannot change back to my original flight. Good news: Based on the delay on my original flight, the new flight gets in about 30 minutes earlier. Bad news: Need to leave for the airport immediately even though I’m not close to being ready.

9:05 AM: Arrive at Jacksonville Airport

9:35 AM: Arrive at gate only to see that the flight to Atlanta is delayed meaning that I would likely miss my connection. Change back to original flight. Delta staff member tells me that it’s always better to go direct and avoid Atlanta. I should know about avoiding Atlanta.

10:10 AM Discover that Delta moved the gate of my flight. Then, I see that my flight is delayed another half hour.

10:15 AM: According to a travel guy on CNN, he predicts that airfare will either go up or down in 2012. Extremely bold prediction!

10:15 AM - 12:45 PM: Am extremely happy that I have an iPad and that Jacksonville has free wireless. Spend too much time on Twitter and playing Angry Birds. I also ate lunch at Chili’s. They have yummy fries.



1:15 PM: Finally leave Jacksonville 2+ hours after the originally scheduled flight time.

3:00ish: Circle Richmond due to heavy traffic around National.

3:20 PM: Go over Georgetown University and see the Kennedy Center, Watergate, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial & Jefferson Memorial, but we’re way too high to land. Apparently, there is a plane on the runway. Circle National.

3:30 PM: Told that we can’t land at National due to weather. Heading to Philadelphia to see Jaromir Jagr. (They didn’t actually say this.)



4:00 PM: Land in Philadelphia. Not allowed to leave aircraft, but have a jolly good time waiting in line for the one restroom on the back of the plane. They ran out of paper towels, so I had to use Kleenex to wipe my hands.

5:30 PM: Depart Philadelphia

5:40 PM: Delta announces that they thank their SkyMiles passengers for flying Delta. Sure, I realize that you have to say that we can use approved electronic devices, but was it really necessary to include the SkyMiles passengers announcement again?

6:10 PM: Arrive at National airport.

7:00 PM: Finally arrive home to a purring and meowing cat extremely happy to see me.

7:10 PM: Clogged toilet

In case you’re curious, according to Google Maps, the trip would have take 11 hours & 44 minutes if I drove. I also read 200 pages of Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt For His Assassin. Great book. Oh, Ziggy has been sitting on my lap the entire time I typed this post.