perils of travel

I think that most of you know I flew to Laramie, Wyoming, for an interview earlier this week. The interview went well; the traveling did not.

Indy to Denver
Things started to go awry from the first leg of my flight. Well, when I boarded the first plane, the first thing I noticed was the temperature. I swear it was like 40 degrees on the plane. So as we all get settled in our seats, the captain comes on over the loud speakers to inform us that the aft heater wasn't working, but they were going to try to fix it so that we wouldn't all turn into popsicles on our flight out to Denver. After only a 20-minute delay, the mechanics had fixed the problem, and we were up in the air in no time.

Denver to Laramie
I arrived in Denver with the hopes that the rest of the flights would go smoothly. Wishful thinking, I know. Now for those of you who have never flown through DIA, there are 3 concourses that are connected by an underground train system. The set up actually works quite well, but I always end up flying in to one concouse and flying out of another. This trip was no exception.

After switching from the B to the A concourse, I had to head all the way to the far end of the A concourse, down an escalator, and down another long hallway. I was going to fly out of the boondocks of the airport. The only planes that fly out of this part of the airport are little puddle jumpers that fly to places like Pierre, Billings, Rock Springs, and Laramie.

I had barely taken a seat to wait for my connecting flight, when I overheard a couple middle-aged ranchers having a conversation.

Rancher A: Well, I reckon (insert something about ranching or machinery or hunting here)...
Rancher B: Yep, I reckon you could...

So I'm sitting there, thinking to myself, "Those two men seriously just used the word reckon in a sentence in real life. I'm not sure I'm OK with this."

That was Sign #1 that this would be an interesting trip.

We finally board the plane, which literally has one seat on each side of the plane (about 18 seats total), no bathroom, and no flight attendant. The pilot and co-pilot were both in their mid-20s, and the co-pilot reminded me a lot of my friend Donald out in Reno. At the beginning of the flight, the co-pilot stands in front of us and casually gives us some standard information about the flight. Then he literally climbs into the cockpit & away we go.

About the time we were supposed to land, the captain says something to us through the intercom system. Unfortunately, since the plane's engines were so loud, we had no idea what he said. So 15 minutes pass...30 minutes pass...45 minutes pass. Literally, 45 minutes go by, and we are still in the air. The captain comes on again and starts to say something. Since we still can't hear him, the guy in the front row leans forward, taps the captain on the shoulder (that's how small the plane is), and asks him to turn up the volume.

Captain: (turns up volume) Is that better?
Passengers: (nod in agreement)
Captain: Good. So you probably didn't hear the last announcement did you?
Passengers: (shake heads no)
Captain: So you have no idea what we're doing, do you?
Passengers: (shake heads no)

The captain goes on to explain that the winds had been 5 knots too strong for us to land in Laramie, so we had flown on to the next stop: Worland, Wyoming. There, we would land, deplane, refuel, and then fly back to Laramie to attempt to land.

So that's exactly what we do. We land and deplane while they refuel the plane. The crazy thing is that before we re-boarded the plane, they made us go back through the security gates. What on earth do they think we did in the 20 minutes we sat in the terminal waiting to get back on the plane and fly back to Laramie?!?

Ugh. That would be Sign #2.

So we get back up in the air, and this time we're able to land in Laramie. We were, however, slightly less than stable as we approached the ground. The plane tilted back and forth and flew side to side over the landing strip. Right before we touched ground, the guy across the aisle from me crossed himself (only half in jest). Of course, we did land just fine in the end, but that was probably the craziest plane ride I've ever been on.

Laramie to Denver
On the way back, the flight on the puddle jumper went quite a bit smoother than the flight had gone on the way into Laramie. The biggest problem this time was that it was literally 20 degrees below zero. Brr! I don't think the interior of that plane ever really heated up properly. But the flight was smooth, and we made it back to Denver in one piece.

Denver to Indy
Home stretch. I was really hoping the last leg of the trip would be problem free, and when we boarded the plane on time, I had high hopes that my wish would be granted. For a while I thought they were, but then the captain came on the intercom to say that the heating and cooling system wasn't working. They were having their mechanics look at the problem to see if they could fix it easily. After sitting there for 45 minutes, they made us deplane since the mechanics still hadn't been able to fix the problem.

We sat in the airport for at least 45 more minutes before they reassigned all the passengers to another flight to Indy. So we all rushed to the complete opposite end of the concourse to catch our new flight. It was a bit of a tight fit both in terms of passengers and of luggage, but eventually we all made it back to Indy.