Hey everyone. Time for another and much less significant story... Today you get to hear the story of the longest flight ever from St. Louis to San Jose, CA: my own personal Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. (Well... minus the trains)
It all started out just as planned. I arrived at the St. Louis Lambert International airport to start my journey home after my first Thanksgiving at home. It was the second time I had ever flown alone, and the first time alone on South West Airlines. I boarded the plane and conversed a bit with my neighbors who were very friendly. We made two initial uneventful stops in New Mexico and Arizona and began to make out way into California. We planned a stop in San Diego and then on up to San Jose. We arrived over San Diego to find the thickest blanket of fog I had seen in a long time. We were surprisingly cleared to land after about an hour of circling. We made two attempts, and the second attempt ended in a sudden and forceful pull-up and prompt complete abort.
After this quick abort we made our way to the nearest airport clear of the fog which was in Ontario (California, not Canada which popped into my mind when they first announced it). We landed in Ontario at about 10:00pm and they actually unloaded all of the San Diego bound passengers onto busses and bused them back to San Diego. This presented a problem for me though as my connecting flight was grounded in San Diego. South West Airlines apparently overlooked this to our surprise when the plane then flew to Sacramento, which was the final destination of most of the passengers on the plane. During this two hour flight to Sacramento the plane was as empty as I had ever seen a commuter jet. There could not have been more than 20 of us on a Boeing 737.
Meanwhile my parents were wondering why I had not called them upon arriving home. They discovered that I had been lost in the system. Southwest had absolutely no idea where I was or what plane I could be on. As a result they told them absolutely nothing, which caused my parents to fear that my plane had crashed.
Back on the airplane, we landed in Sacramento at a bit after midnight to find an empty airport and six of us bound to San Jose lost by the airline. The airline staff was shocked to hear that we were here. We collected our baggage and waited for the next tidbit of information fearing we would have to rent hotel rooms for the night.
This was when I realized they had lost some of my luggage.
The airline made its decision. They would rent us a vehicle and we would drive it back to San Jose. We were tired and satisfied with this as all we wanted was to get home. We walked out onto the rental area driveway to find the largest vehicle they could find was a Cadillac. The six of us crammed in and just then the airline staff found my missing luggage that had actually been left on the tarmac in a baggage car (to my relief).
So the two hour drive began. Even though we had a police officer who really wanted to be home in the vehicle, the driver refused to speed turning it into a three hour drive. No one said a word the entire drive back. I was the smallest so I sat bitch, however on the positive side they actually dropped me off at my dorm building.
I climbed out to find that my parents and roommate (who attempted to pick me up from the airport) were very confused and fearful that I had encountered some serious problems. I was fine though and just went to bed.
Ok I know that was a pretty boring long winded story... It seemed more exciting before I wrote it.
