So we are FINALLY home from our little excursion to Washington, and what an adventure it was! Upon hearing about Jake's flight benefits, people usually comment on how lucky we are to fly so inexpensively. Yes, we do get great deals and have had good luck flying stand-by in the past but it seemed like this weekend our luck really ran out. Because of
Southwest airline's disaster and spring break, the airports were jam-packed with stand-by travelers. Here's a rundown of the events that occurred:
Day 1:
Jake & I both worked 1/2 days in the morning, then got on an afternoon flight to Spokane, WA. Our dear friend/photographer Megan met us at the airport and we went straight to Riverfront park to take out engagement photos. Then we grabbed some yummy thai food for dinner with Megan, her husband Kent, and my friend Bryce.
After that, we headed back to Megan & Kent's house to make cookies, watch a movie & get some sleep.
Cute Megan making vegan snickerdoodles.
We made them into yummy ice cream sandwiches
Day 2:
The day started out bright an early. We woke up and got to the airport at 5am, hoping to make a 6:10am flight home to SLC. Well, we sat and watched while 7 flights came and left without us on them. We even looked at taking another route to get home. No luck. We talked to a gate agent and she said that there was no way we were getting out of the Spokane airport til Tuesday. Not wanting to sit there and wait for 4 days, we decided to rent a car and drive to Seattle, which is a bigger airport and more likely to have open flights. So we rented this sweet ride, and set out for the 5 hour drive ahead of us.
A few hours into the drive, we stopped at a scenic overlook of the Columbia river to stretch our legs. It was crazy windy, but so pretty!
Haha, this picture just makes me laugh. We're talking 50mph winds here!
It was smooth sailing til we got about 100 miles outside of Seattle. We were going over Snoqualmi pass and hit a blizzard. I'm talking 4-wheel drive or chains required storm. Clearly, our little car was not up for the challenge, so we pulled to the side of the road, waited for a snow-plow to drive by, then followed him down the mountain white-knuckled.
I am a snow lover, so I did have to stop and appreciate the beauty of the fresh snow for a minute
Once we got out of the mountains and down to lower elevation, Seattle was beautiful and had no signs of the fury that we had experienced.
We had about a 2 hours til we had to get to the airport, so we some some sights in downtown Seattle:
So we got the the SEA-TAC airport, turned our rental car in, then tried to get on some more flights home. We even tried to get on a flight to NYC, then SLC but not no avail. By the time we exhausted our efforts, it was 11pm and too late to call someone to stay with. (Jake served his mission in Seattle, so he has a lot of friends there) So we set up camp and tried to get some sleep for the night
We were rudely awoken at 4am by the cleaning crew vacuuming. That started another day nearly full of flights coming and going. By 6pm we had had it and decided that we needed to change our strategy. Another day of hanging out and eating airport food. Gross and incredibly over-priced.
We almost bought full-price tickets, which would have cost us over $500, but those flights were all over-booked as well. Then we looked into renting a car and driving the 13 hours to get home. I guess there were snow storms in Southern Idaho and Northern Utah so my mom begged us not to do that. We were feeling very defeated, so we called some friends who were kind enough to let us stay at their home. Finally after 2 days we got to shower, change clothes and sleep in real beds - Heaven!!
There were no flights that looked promising in the first half of the day, so we decided to do some sight-seeing instead of just sitting in the airport. We rented a car and drove to Snoqualmi Falls. They were beautiful! It was just the break we needed.
Returned our second rental car and were able to make a 6:30 flight home to SLC. And we even made it on first class - Vindication! This is us sitting happily in our roomie, free-drinks-and-snacks, first class seats. I have never been more happy in my life to see the Salt Lake airport. Hallelujah, we're home!!!
I snapped a picture of this advertisement in the Spokane airport. We thought it was befitting
3 comments:
oH MY GOSH!!You had quite the adventure - I love that you were excited for the snow, I wouldn't have been happy -- and yeay for such great friends letting you come to their house -- sounds like your stint in the airport was no bueno. But I am SO excited to see your engagements!!!
gosh I think I would have just gave in and dropped the money! that is so frustrating. glad you made it home finally!!
oh gosh I think I would have just dropped the money! that is so frustrating. glad you made it home finally!!
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